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NOT TRADITION, 



BUT 



SCRIPTURE. 

BY 

PHILIP N.^SHUTTLEWORTH, D.D., 

WARDEN OP NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
AND RECTOR OF FOXLEY, WILTS. 



Si reputamus quam lubricus sit humanse mentis lapsus in Dei oblivionem ; quanta in omne 
genus erroris pi-oclivitas ; quanta ad confingendas identidem novas et fictitias religiones libido ; 
perspicere licebit, quam necessaria fuerit talis ccelestis doctrinae consignatio ; ne vel oblivione 
depeviret, vel errore evane»ceret, vel audacia hominum corrumperetur. 

Calvini Institutio y lib. i. cap. 6. 



FIRST AMERICAN FROM THE THIRD LONDON EDITION^ 



/ 



~ PHILADELPHIA: 

HOOKER & AGNEW 
1841. 



. $5 



L. R. BAILEY, PRINTER, 26 NORTH FIFTH STREET. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



THIRD LONDON EDITION. 



The object of the Author in publishing the first Edition 
of the following short tract a twelvemonth ago, was that 
of recording his personal protest against a system of doc- 
trines recently attempted to be revived after the lapse of 
more than a century, and which have ever appeared to 
him to be founded upon mistaken views of the general 
tenor and character of Scripture. Officially connected as 
he has been for many years with the university of Oxford, 
he had for some time waited with no small anxiety, in 
the hope that some of its more qualified and influential 
members would come forward for the purpose of disclaim- 
ing what in public opinion had been considered as pre- 
eminently constituting the Oxford school of theology. 
Finding himself in great measure disappointed in this 
expectation, he put forth the present publication with 
the intention now stated, namely, that of presenting 
rather a brief summary of his own views, than a com- 
plete discussion in all its details of an intricate and 
much agitated question. His work having obtained a 
larger circulation than he had originally anticipated, a 
new impression of it is now laid before the public, with 
such additional matter and illustrations as appeared 
necessary for rendering the main argument more com- 



IV ADVERTISEMENT. 

plete. It is, however, with no small gratification that 
he perceives that in the course of the present year the 
controversy has fallen into far abler hands than his 
own. The important point under discussion, is now 
fairly at issue before the public ; and from the learning 
and ability which have been brought to bear upon it 
from various quarters, he cannot feel any apprehension 
with respect to the final issue of the controversy. The 
strictly evangelical view, as it is called, of the Christian 
covenant, is so much more in accordance with the cry- 
ing wants of our spiritual nature, and so much more 
consistent with the language of the New Testament, 
than the system of theology which has been recently 
revived in opposition to it, that the respective schemes 
would seem to require only to be plainly stated, in order 
to establish the superior claims of the former. The 
question involved in the discussion is, in fact, no less 
than that of the first foundation upon which all our 
hopes of salvation are to be built : — Whether we are to 
consider works as leading to justification, or justification 
as necessarily leading to good works ; whether holiness 
is the efficient cause of faith, or faith that of holiness ? 
The first Reformers of our Church believed and taught 
the latter doctrine ; and, however (whether induced by 
feelings of ascetic devotion, or relying upon presumed 
intellectual strength and extensive learning) men may 
be tempted for the moment to deviate from the ancient 
and familiar paths, to this conclusion will the rallying 
good sense and spiritual aspirations of mankind, in their 
sober and unprejudiced moments, most assuredly return. 
It is asserted, upon what appears to be good authority, 
that the pious, eloquent, and learned Alexander Knox 
strongly felt and acknowledged in his last moments the 
unsatisfactory nature of those theological views which 
he has so ably defended in his writings, and his final 



ADVERTISEMENT. V 

preference of the doctrine of divine Grace as inculcated 
by the earlier Protestants. It is natural that so highly 
a gifted and so well disposed a mind should come to 
such a conclusion. Human nature in its distress, and 
under a deep sense of its spiritual wants, soon begins to 
feel that nothing short of the plenary mercy promised 
to the repentant soul through faith can fully meet the 
emergency. In the buoyancy of health, and the excite- 
ment of intellectual controversy, we may think other- 
wise ; but in the hour of need, our self-reliance necessa- 
rily gives place to thoughts more consistent with our 
perfectly helpless and dependent position. 

As a conclusion to these few remarks, let the Author 
here express his sincere hope and belief, that not a word 
will be found in the following pages inconsistent with 
the feelings of Christian charity, or incompatible with 
his real respect for the undoubted good intentions of the 
party to whose views he is opposed. That they have 
adopted distorted views of many portions of God's 
revealed will, he does not hesitate in stating as his 
decided conviction. And under this impression he has 
felt it his duty to enter his protest against a system of 
doctrine opposed, as he conceives, to sound evangelical 
orthodoxy. But in justice to them he feels himself 
also bound to state, that in many respects he conceives 
them to have done good service to the cause of religion, 
by the opposition which they have made to the laxity 
of modern unchristian speculation, and the increased 
attention which they have excited in the public mind 
with respect to the polity and discipline of the primi- 
tive Church. 



NOT TRADITION, 



BUT 



SCRIPTURE 



" The Universal Lord gave to his Apostles authority 
to preach the Gospel, by whose means we possess know- 
ledge of the truth, that is to say, the doctrine of the Son 
of God; to which same Apostles the Lord also said, 
1 He who heareth you, heareth me ; and he who des- 
piseth you, despiseth me and him who sent me.' For 
by no other persons have we been instructed in the dis- 
pensation of salvation than by those through whom the 
Gospel has been delivered to us; which Gospel they at 
the first preached by word of mouth, but afterwards, by 
God's will, handed down to us in writing, to be the foun- 
dation and pillar of our faith. * * * Thus Matthew 
among the Hebrews published his written Gospel in the 
language of that people, at the time that Peter and Paul 
were preaching the Gospel and founding their Church 
at Rome. But after their removal from the world, 
Mark, the disciple and amanuensis of Peter, himself 
delivered to us in writing the facts which had been com- 
municated to him by Peter ; and Luke also, the fol- 
lower of Paul, published in a book the Gospel which 
had been preached by that Apostle. Lastly, John also, 
the disciple of our Lord, who reclined upon his breast 
at supper, himself also published his Gospel while resid- 



NOT TRADITION, BUT SCRIPTURE. 7 

ing at Ephesus in Asia."* Adversus Hseres. lib. 3. 
cap. 1. 

Such is the testimony of Irenseus to the sufficiency 
and completeness of the written works of the first 
teachers of Christianity as a summary of Christian doc- 
trine. That which they originally taught by word of 
mouth, says he, the same they afterwards put into 
writing; and those writings are the boohs of the New 
Testament. Here is not the slightest intimation that 
their oral instruction was in any respect wider in extent 
of doctrine than that written record which has descended 
to our times. So far is the primitive author now quoted 
from asserting that the first Apostles entrusted any of 
their doctrines to the uncertain vehicle of mere tra- 
dition, that his expressions are scarcely compatible with 
such a supposition. Not even the remotest suspicion 
to that effect appears to have glanced across his mind. 
The above words, it should be remembered, were di- 
rected by him against the Gnostic heretics of his day, 
with reference to whom he thus continues his argument 
on the subject of Tradition: "For when they are re- 
futed from Scripture, they (i. e. the Valentinians) turn 
their attach against the Scripture itself, as incorrect, as 
not of sufficient authority, as vague and contradictor!/, 



* " Dominus omnium dedit Apostolis suis potestatem Evangelii, per quos et veri- 
tatem, hoc est, Dei Filii doctrinam cognovimus ; quibus et dixit Dominus, ' Qui 
vos audit, me audit; et qui vos contemnit, me contemnit et eum qui me misit.' 
Non enim per alios dispositionem salutis nostrae cognovimus, qu?m per eos per 
quos Evangelium pervenit ad nos; quod quidem tunc praconiaveruut; postea vero 
per Dei voluntatem in Scripturis nobis tradiderunt, fundamentum et columnam 
fidei nostrae futuram. * * * Ita Matthaeus in Hebraeis ipsorum lingua scripturam 
edidit Evangelii, cum Petrus et Paulus Roma? evangelizarent et fundarent Eccle- 
siam. Post vero horum discessum, Marcus, discipulus et interpres Petri, et ipse 
quas a Petro annunciata erant, per scripta nobis tradidit; et Lucas, sectator Pauli, 
quod ab illo praedicabatur Evangelium in libro condidit. Postea et Joannes, disci- 
pulus Domini, qui et supra pectus ejus recumbebat, et ipse edidit evangelium 
Ephesi Asia? commorans." Adversus Haeres. lib. 3. cap. 1. 



8 NOT TRADITION, 

and incapable of affording perception of the truth to per- 
sons unacquainted with Tradition"* Ad versus Hseres. 
lib. 3. cap. 2. 

It appears, from the above quotation, that the first 
appeal to floating tradition, as containing articles of be- 
lief in addition or in contradiction to the records of holy 
writ, was made by the earliest of those numerous classes 
of heretics, who at so early a period of the Church 
attempted to engraft their own inventions upon the 
revelation of God's will. And much indeed it were to 
be wished that the argument here adduced against the 
completeness of Scripture, as a rule of faith, had been 
confined to the school now mentioned, and that far 
holier and better men had not been from time to time 
led away by it, to set up the uncertain, and (as painful 
experience has shown) the dangerous standard of tradi- 
tion as a concurrent and equally obligatory authority 
by its side. But on this subject, I shall have more to 
urge by and by. At present let me proceed by con- 
cluding my extract from Irenseus. In reply, then, to 
the above-quoted appeal of his opponents from the sure 
and tangible test of the written Gospel, to their own 
traditions, or, in other words, to their own gratuitous 
additions to revelation, the good Father proceeds to urge, 
that even with respect to tradition, the orthodox Church 
can again confidently meet them on their own ground, 
and plead against their arbitrary assumptions, the sound 
traditions derived by the Church directly from the 
Apostles themselves, which will be found in all points 
to harmonize and coincide with the written word. 



* " Cum enim ex Scripturis arguuntur (Valentiniani videl.) in accusationem ver- 
tuntur ipsarum scripturarum ; quasi non recte habeant, neque sint ex authoritate, 
et quia varie sint dicta, et quia non possit in his inveniri Veritas ab his qui nesciant 
Traditionem." Adversus Hseres. lib. 3, cap. 2, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 9 

Such was the decided preference of Scripture to Tra- 
dition, or rather it might appear more correct to say, 
the almost exclusive adoption of the former, as a reve- 
lation of God's will, displayed by this early Christian 
writer. In fact, so entirely does this good and single- 
minded man appear to have considered the written word 
as complete in itself, that he proceeds, in a subsequent 
passage, to argue with more honest simplicity than 
soundness of sense, or accuracy of logic, that according 
to the nature of things, and the physical structure of the 
universe, exactly four Gospels,* neither more nor less, 
were to be expected. We may smile at the weakness 
of the argument, but it leaves us no room to doubt that 
he considered that portion of revelation, as at all events 
incapable of further addition. It should be added, that 
in his frequent quotations from other portions of the 
Books of the New Testament, his appeal appears always 
to be made in a spirit of complete and implicit deference 
to what he had been taught to consider conclusive as an 
infallible rule of faith. 

But Irenseus does not stand alone in this view of the 
case. Take the Apostolical Fathers from their very 
earliest commencement, and I have no hesitation in 
asserting that written Scripture, and not oral Tradition, 
will be found to have supplied the whole subject matter 
of their doctrinal teaching. Begin in the first place 
with the oldest of the uninspired Christian writers, 
Clemens Romanus. It is well known that the epistle 
which was transmitted from Rome, in his name, was 



* " Neque enim plura numero quam haec sunt, neque rursus pauciora capit esse 
Evangelia. Quoniam enim quatuor regiones mundi sunt in quo sumus, et quatuor 
principales spiritus, et disseminata est Ecclesia super omnem terrain, columna 
autem et firmamentum Ecclesise est Evangelium, et spiritus vitae; consequens est 
quatuor habere earn columnas, undique flantes incorruptibilitatem, et vivificantes 
homines," &c. Adversus Heeres. lib. 3. cap. 11. 

B 



10 NOT TRADITION, 

addressed to the members of the Church of Corinth, in 
consequence of certain disputes, and a spirit of insubor- 
dination which had grown up in that community, and 
which Clemens, as an influential personage in the Chris- 
tian commonwealth, was called upon to appease. Now, 
then, what are the principles and doctrines contained 
in the first of his two letters, which is the one respecting 
the authenticity of which no doubt has ever existed? 
They are simply these. He exhorts the Corinthian 
Church to mutual Christian love, and submission to 
legitimate authority, by those natural arguments of 
sound sense and piety, which any other good man in 
his situation might have been expected to use. He 
reminds them more especially of their former turbulence 
under the paternal rule of the apostle Paul, and strongly 
enforces his arguments on the side of peace, by large 
extracts from his writings; particularly from the Epistle 
to the Hebrews; and also by sundry quotations from 
the Old Testament. But from first to last, through the 
whole of this truly Christian exhortation, there occurs 
not one single word, implying any groundwork what- 
ever for authoritative inculcation of doctrine, beyond 
the limits of inspired Scripture. No allusion, direct or 
incidental, is to be found to any one element of Christian 
faith still floating in a state of mere oral teaching, and 
not yet secured and rendered at once permanent and 
free from misapprehension, by being committed care- 
fully to writing. In passing onward from the works of 
the inspired Apostles, to this the most ancient of their 
uninspired successors, we find ourselves still, as it were, 
breathing the same pure atmosphere with the first 
founders of our faith, and surrounded by the same iden- 
tical objects and associations. None of those caprices 
and imaginary refinements which, as time advances, so 
naturally and almost necessarily obtrude themselves into 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 11 

the speculations of theologians, appear as yet to have 
had their beginning. We still recognize evangelical 
truth in its simple and unostentatious attire. We can 
discover not the smallest trace of the affectation of 
novelty, or of an attempt to put old and received truths 
in a new and more attractive position. We meet here 
not the slighest symptom of that spirit which prevailed 
in later times, of withholding from the multitude what 
were assumed to be the esoteric doctrines of our faith, 
which, under the name of the "disciplina arcani," con- 
sidered the breasts of the priesthood, and not the uni- 
versally accessible page of revelation, the authorized 
storehouse of divine knowledge. He wrote like St. 
Paul, and not the less so, because he added nothing to 
what Paul had already taught; and with one or two 
trifling exceptions, which merely show that his pen 
was not guided by infallible inspiration, his writings 
would not, perhaps, be unworthy of that Apostle. 

The Epistle of Poly carp to the Philippians, which 
comes next in order of time among the works of the 
primitive Fathers, is again, like that of Clemens, in all 
respects a close imitation of the manner and sentiments 
of St. Paul. The allusions which it contains to that 
Apostle's writings, more particularly to the Epistles to 
Timothy and Titus, are numerous; in addition to 
which, references are also made in it from time to 
time to passages in the four Gospels, which are quoted 
with all the unsuspecting confidence of a mind acknow- 
ledging them as portions of a Divine Revelation. But 
here, as in the former case, not one word occurs, not 
the slightest hint or intimation is given, which denotes 
the existence of any matter of faith not included in, and 
especially recorded by, the sacred writings. "The 
blessed and renowned Paul," he says, "did with all 
exactness and soundness teach the words of truth; and. 



12 NOT TRADITION, 

being gone from yon, wrote an epistle to you, into which, 
if you look, you will be able to edify yourselves in the 
faith which has been delivered unto you; which is the 
mother of us all : being followed with hope, and led on 
by a general love both towards God and towards Christ, 
and towards our neighbour. For if any man has these 
things, he has fulfilled the law of righteousness." Surely 
these are not the expressions of a man who looked upon 
the apostolical writings as containing an incomplete 
summary of the Divine Will, and requiring to be 
helped out, and made complete by incidental glean- 
ings from the verbal communications of intermediate 
teachers. 

The Epistles of Ignatius, which are nearly contem- 
porary with that of Polycarp, mark the anxiety of a 
good and pious mind distressed by the increasing 
prevalence of those heresies, the Judaizing and the 
Gnostic, which at so early a period assailed the~ Chris- 
tian Church, and are little more than earnest appeals 
to the respective parties whom he addresses, to return 
to what they find written; to submit in brotherly affec- 
tion to that graduated rule of Church government 
established by the Apostles : and to use, what he styles, 
"none but Christian nourishment, abstaining from pas- 
ture which is of another kind : that is to say, heresy. 
For they that are heretics," says he, "confound together 
the doctrine of Jesus Christ with their own poison; 
whilst they seem worthy of belief; as men give a deadly 
potion mixed with sweet wine, which he who is igno- 
rant of does with the treacherous pleasure sweetly 
drink in his own death." This language again, to say 
the least of it, is certainly not that of a man who thinks 
that the recorded words of Scripture can be safely 
added to from the mere conjectures, however plausible, 
of uninspired human ingenuity. It is needless to add 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 1*3 

that he is totally silent on the subject of tradition as a 
rule of faith. 

The relation of the respective martyrdoms of Ignatius 
and Polycarp come next in turn for our consideration 
among the records of the age immediately following 
that of the Apostles. As authentic narratives of two 
most important events in the early history of the 
Church, they must be read by all Christians with 
sentiments of the deepest interest. But the abundant 
stores of spiritual edification which they afford, is not 
the subject of our present discussion. All that I need 
observe of them on this occasion is, that there is not to 
be found in them one single expression having reference 
to the existence of a double standard of faith, or setting 
up tradition as auxiliary to revelation. 

The writings of Justin Martyr, the next in the order 
of the primitive writers, bring us down to a consider- 
ably later period; namely, to about the middle of the 
second century of the Christian era. In the works of 
this Father, quotations from the Canonical books of the 
New Testament meet us almost in every page; all of 
them substantially correct as conveying to us the exact 
sentiments, and often the very words of the inspired 
penmen; but still expressed occasionally with a degree 
of latitude which appears to denote citations from me- 
mory rather than that verbal accuracy, which in a more 
critical and refined age would necessarily accompany 
every reference to the inspired volume. Nothing, how- 
ever, can be more certain than the fact, that it is in 
Scripture, and Scripture alone, that, according to the 
sentiments of this writer, we are to find the whole 
substance and foundation of our religious belief. No 
distinction is to be discovered in his writings between 
exoteric and esoteric teaching ; no assertion of an exclu- 
sive right vested in any particular order of men for the 



14 

authoritative interpretation of the word of God; no 
reference to the oral communications of the Apostles 
as opposed to what they left recorded in writing for the 
edification of the Church ; no one hint, in short, that a 
single dogma, obligatory upon the consciences of be- 
lievers, exists, not recorded in and identified with the 
revealed Scriptures. "On the day which is called 
Sunday," says he, " an assembly of the believers through 
town and country takes place upon some common spot, 
when the writings of the Apostles, or the books of the 
Prophets, are publicly read, so long as the time allows, 
after which the presiding minister in a sermon exhorts 
his hearers to the practical adoption of the good pre- 
cepts which they have thus heard recited."* In this 
short account we might fancy that we are reading a 
description of the mode of performing divine worship 
in any modern Protestant congregation. Certain it is, 
that nothing occurs either here or in any other portion 
of the writings of this Father, which denotes a rule of 
faith looking unsteadily from Scripture to tradition, f 
and adapting that which is found expressly written, to 
those additional doctrines, which have floated down 
from age to age through the channel of catechetical 
teaching. 



* Apol. i. c. 67. 

t Although throughout the whole of this work the word " tradition" is used in 
its usual modern acceptation, as implying oral, as opposed to scriptural teaching, 
still the reader should bear in mind that the expression " Traditio," or " Traditio 
Apostolica" as used in the early Christian writers, is frequently applied by them to 
the inspired writings themselves. Thus we find in the 73d Epistle in the corres- 
pondence of Cyprian, the use of it in this latter sense. " Si ergo, aut in Evangelio 
prsecipitur, aut in Apostolorum Epislolis vel Actibus continetur ut a quacunque 
haeresi venientes non baptizentur, sed tantum manus illis iraponatur in pcenitentiam, 
observetur divina Jkbc et sancta traditio.' 1 '' It is obvious therefore that where tradi- 
tion is spoken of in the works of the early Fathers as possessed of authority in 
matters of faith, it is not therefore to be assumed as a matter of course, that a sanc- 
tion to merely oral instruction is thereby intended. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 15 

In the commencement of these observations I have 
already referred to the sentiments of Irenceus, the con- 
temporary of Justin, on this same subject. And thus, 
then, through this scanty series of writers, we descend 
through more than the first 150 years from the close of 
our Lord's ministry. Now during this long period, I 
repeat, we have every reason for believing that the 
doctrine of tradition being concurrent in authority with 
Scripture, or obligatory on the conscience, (in any 
degree beyond that in which the established usages of 
any set of good men must necessarily come with a cer- 
tain recommendation in their favour to other well-dis- 
posed persons,) had never for a moment suggested itself 
to mankind. And yet most assuredly, if tradition has 
any claim to the sacred character which some modern 
writers would attach to it, it must have been during 
this very interval, that its accuracy must have been 
tested by the sifting of evidence, and the doctrines 
involved in it recorded in some distinct and palpable 
form, for the benefit of future ages. If tradition mean 
any thing as a rule of faith, it must of course mean 
apostolical tradition. It must come into actual contact 
with, it must descend in unbroken continuity from, the 
sera of direct inspiration, or it is nearly, if not utterly 
valueless. The opinions of the writers of the third or 
fourth centuries, unless they can be traced upwards 
through the earlier channel of Church history, neces- 
sarily carry with them no more weight of authority 
than might be claimed just as confidently in support of 
his own peculiar views by any theological speculatist 
of the present day. I am not indeed prepared to say, 
that although during this early period the authority of 
tradition had never been theoretically acknowledged, 
its practical influence had not in some degree (stealthily 
indeed and unconsciously to the parties adopting it) 



16 NOT TRADITION, 

begun already to make itself felt. This is, however, 
only what was to have been expected from the admitted 
circumstances of human nature. Man is so necessarily 
an imitator of his fellow-man, that it is impossible for 
any set of human beings to associate much with one 
another, without gradually adopting the various shades 
of each other's opinions. In no case is this more certain 
to occur than in that of religion. All men look anxiously 
and tremblingly towards the unknown world; all have 
their various private speculations as to the best mode 
of pleasing God and averting his just judgments. The 
interests of eternity are too important a stake, not to 
call into action every suggestion of the imagination, 
all the dreams of an alarmed fancy, no less than the 
deliberate inferences of a sound understanding. The 
more delicate and susceptible the conscience, the more 
operative of course are these feelings, and the more 
likely to break out into eccentric modes of action. The 
only really efficient check to the discursive and fanciful 
schemes of righteousness which these natural sentiments 
suggest, is the possession of that very blessing which 
we believe that Divine Providence has in its mercy 
afforded to us, namely, a written and inspired rule of 
faith, in which all that we are called upon to do, all 
which our Maker really requires of us, is specially and 
expressly recorded. But even this barrier will not 
always be effectual against the timid suggestions of 
our own anxious and scrupulous view of divine things. 
It is no easy matter for erring and- sinful man to per- 
suade himself that he has so merciful a Creator and 
Judge as revelation declares the Almighty to be. " Let 
me fall into the hands of God, and not into the hands 
of man," were the words of David when he had to 
choose between the alternative of punishment set before 
him. And the conclusion was a just one. But not so 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 17 

reasons the world at large. A wounded conscience is 
naturally timid. Men accordingly invest God with 
human feelings and passions, and will not be persuaded 
that sacrifices which He has himself declared that He 
does not require, are not indispensable portions of their 
duty and service towards Him. 

I have made these observations merely for the pur- 
pose of remarking, that although during that early 
period of the Church, to which I have thus far alluded, 
Scripture, and Scripture only, was the openly acknow- 
ledged rule of faith, still we are not to be surprised if 
we find during the same period the practice of the 
early Christians gradually and imperceptibly gliding 
into sentiments and usages not strictly in accordance 
with what they found written, and thus unsuspectingly 
setting the first example, which subsequent generations 
so fearfully enlarged upon, of setting up the command- 
ments of men in rivalry to the revelations of God. The 
evil to which I allude was, indeed, during the two first 
centuries of the Christian era, comparatively slight; 
yet from the moment that the book of revelation closed, 
or rather before it closed, the first symptoms of the 
darkening of the theological atmosphere may be faintly 
traced, which, as time advanced, gradually thickened 
into the deepest night. But on these points, I shall 
have occasion to dilate more at large in a later portion 
of these remarks. 

Before I proceed further, let me make a few observa- 
tions on what I have always conceived to be the great 
leading principle of Protestantism ; namely, " the entire 
sufficiency of Scripture, independently of tradition, as 
a rule of faith and doctrine." 

Now the very fact that the whole Christian world is 
agreed as to the reality of the inspiration of the writers 
of the New as well as of the Old Testament, appears to 
c 



18 NOT TRADITION, 

me, I own, conclusive as to the correctness of the infe- 
rence, which it is my object to advocate. That the 
Almighty should have supplied miraculous aid to enable 
certain human beings to perpetuate, in writing, an 
infallible record of his will, seems at once sufficient to 
establish the assumption that such a record must be 
complete in all important particulars. Where is our 
security from error, even in the study of the Scriptures 
themselves, if they afford only a partial view of the 
Divine dealings with mankind ; and if we are still left 
to trace out through the dizzy mazes of conjecture and 
orally transmitted doctrines, facts, without the aid of 
which the inspired writings would remain either vaguely 
inconclusive or hopelessly obscure? I am aware, indeed, 
that the existence of the Church was prior, in point of 
time, to that of the apostolical writings. True, also, it 
is, that the first preachers of Christianity necessarily 
communicated their doctrines by oral teaching ; but 
does it therefore follow, (is it indeed for a moment to 
be believed?) that when they did proceed to fix in 
writing, for the benefit of after-ages, those selfsame 
doctrines, they after all made only a partial selection of 
a few general principles ? that they omitted to embody 
in that record the whole counsel and revealed will of 
God ? or even, if we can imagine them to have been so 
unwisely disposed, can we believe that the Holy Spirit 
which guided their pens, would have thus left its own 
work thus incomplete?* 

* An argument attempting to prove the incompleteness of our present canon of 
Scripture, has been occasionally adduced from the assumed fact that an Epistle of 
St. Paul to the Church of Laodicea (supposed to be alluded to in Chap. iv. ver. 17, 
of the Epistle to the Colossians) is now lost. In reality, however, there is no ground 
whatever for supposing that any writing such as that alluded to, was ever in exist- 
ence. St. Paul's reference is not to an Epistle addressed by him to the Church in 
Laodicea, but to a communication received by him from Laodicea, ix Aaoo'tjcftas? 
probably containing interrogatories respecting spiritual matters similar to those 
which we know him to have received from the Church established at Corinth. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 19 

But let Scripture speak for itself. We all have the 
book in our possession. We all know the amount of 
our own spiritual wants, and the degree of information, 
of counsel, and of moral strength which that book is 
calculated to afford. Let us ask our own hearts and 
our own experience, " Has it left its work half done?" 
Is any thing by which we can really promote God's 
honour and service left unnoticed and unrecommended 
by it ? If Christianity is, indeed, what Christ has de- 
clared it to be, the worship of God in spirit and in truth, 
and not a mere system of external ordinances, are the 
sacred writings, such as we find them, chargeable with 
any defects or omissions, which disqualify them from 
effecting this their declared object, to the greatest possi- 
ble degree ? Let us, for the purpose of answering these 
questions, state, in as few words as the subject will per- 
mit, what doctrines the inspired volume, independently 
of all human traditions whatever, does avowedly contain. 
In putting the case thus, of course I mean by "the 
Inspired Volume" those writings which are by general 
agreement deemed canonical, the text of which has un- 
dergone the ordeal of sound criticism; and I am also assu- 
ming the context to be taken, without reference to sects 
or parties, in its plainest and most grammatical sense. 

Taking then the word Scripture under this definition, 
and deriving our inferences respecting its purport from 
the unsophisticated meaning of its language, and not 
from the captious renderings of interested and preju- 
diced partisans, we can, I think, assert positively that the 
Bible does contain the following doctrines. In the first 
place, the Old Testament having laid down the great 
primary position of the moral corruption of our nature, 
proceeds to show how, in the case of the single nation 
of the Jews, God so far interfered with the natural 
course of events as to place in the hands of that people 



20 NOT TRADITION, 

a perfect rule of life, accompanied by a system of ritual 
ordinances, for the expiation of such sins of omission 
and commission as might naturally be expected to re- 
sult from the admitted infirmity of the human agent, 
when subjected to a trial confessedly above his strength. 
These expiatory observances, however, though estab- 
lished by the Almighty Himself, are still spoken of by 
the selfsame Scriptures as imperfect in the following 
particulars : in their application they were adapted to 
one single nation only ; in their operation upon social 
life, they were cumbrous and inconvenient in their 
details ; and even with regard to their moral tendency, 
the righteousness they led to was rather that of ceremo- 
nial obedience thair the spiritual worship of the heart. 
They were professedly a provisional arrangement for a 
definite period, and for the use of a far from advanced 
people. The prophetic books of the Old Testament ac- 
cordingly anticipate the approach of an infinitely more 
fortunate period. The distinction between Jew and 
Gentile was one day to be removed ; ritual observances 
were to cease, and internal holiness to be effectually 
cultivated : the typical sacrifices of bulls and of goats 
were to be done away, and one great sacrifice for sin 
was to be made. God was to be reconciled to the whole 
human race, and that reconciliation was to be a free 
gift to all of every nation, who should ask for it. " Ho ! 
every one that thirsteth," was their language, " come 
ye to the waters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, 
buy and eat : yea, come, buy wine and milk without 
money and without price."* It would be quite super- 
fluous to detail other passages to the same purport. 
They occur again and again throughout the prophetic 
books of the Old Testament. Now it cannot he denied 

* Isaiah lv. 1. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 21 

ike covenant of the New Testament, as we find it 

in the writings of the Apostles and Evangelists, exactly 

realizes this description. It was announced at its first 
commencement as a system from which was to redound 
glory to God. and peace and goodwill to mankind. Its 
leading characteristic, (and. when we recollect the cloud 
of gloom which the timid superstitions of mankind have 
thrown over this singularly mereiful dispensation, the 
circumstance cannot be too repeatedly noticed.) its 
leading characteristic is declared to be. that it is not a 
religion of external ceremonies, but of inward right- 
ecusness. Its attention is not directed to a tissue of 
minute details and intricate forms, but to grand and 
simple views of the one great process of reconciliation 
between God and man. 

Such are the features of the Gospel dispensation as 
traced by Scripture, with a clearness and precision 
which it is impossible to mistake. Nor are the expres- 
sions of revelation less explicit, when speaking of the 
Divine Author of our faith. The four Gospels, with- 
out indulging a profane curiosity, set before us every 
particular respecting his person and ministry with 
which it behoves us to be acquainted. His character, 
office, doctrine, and mode of teaching, are graphically 
and minutely described from his coming into the world 
as a child, to his departure from it in glory. If lan- 
guage has any meaning, he is distinctly declared to be 
God, and yet distinct from God the Father: on the 
other hand, he is as unequivocally declared to have 
borne for a season all the infirmities of our flesh, sin 
alone excepted. Again, the personality of the Holy 
Spirit is distinctly asserted : and yet that Divine Person 
is as clearly declared to be identified neither with the 
Father nor the Son. In combination with these expli- 
cit statements, the strid unhv of the Godhead is also 



22 

positively asserted. Human reason may be startled at 
these seemingly contradictory positions, but there they 
are; Scripture declares them to be true, and we must 
either reject Scripture as inspired, or accept them as we 
find them. And yet, (the moment that we take a prac- 
tical view of the question,) from these mysterious doc- 
trines flows, in direct and obvious inference, the most 
lovely and effective moral code which the human heart 
can conceive, or desire. God reconciled, and man's 
fallen nature restored. The sinner spared, yet sin de- 
nounced and punished. God condescending to man, and 
man, with awakened spiritual feelings, approximating 
to God. Humility in a man's estimate of himself; 
kindness and charity thence resulting towards the 
whole human race. Faith, which, throwing itself at 
the Saviour's cross, disclaims all good works of its 
own : good works on the other hand which pullulate 
and grow up of themselves in the regenerate heart in 
consequence of that very disclaimer. Justification, in 
short, the cause : sanctification the result. Such, in a 
few words, are the leading doctrines of the New Testa- 
ment. Nor yet has the same revelation been silent as 
to the means by which those doctrines are, in confor- 
mity with the wants and constitution of human nature, 
to assume the external form and substance of a visible 
religion. God is to be worshipped in spirit and in 
truth; but ordinances in some form or other, in our 
present state of existence, are necessary for the renova- 
tion of our habits of holiness, and to prevent our faith 
from becoming too thin and impalpable for our practice. 
Our Saviour has accordingly ordained two solemn in- 
stitutions ; the one, that of baptism or of regeneration, 
by which every person initiated into this covenant 
enters into that course of spiritual obedience, which, if 
duly performed, is little less than the adoption of a new 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 23 

and a better nature : the other, the Eucharistic com- 
memoration of his death, by which we are feelingly 
reminded of the vast price which has been paid for 
our salvation, our self-humiliation and gratitude are 
awakened, and we become as it were spiritually identi- 
fied with him whose typical body and blood we receive 
under the elements of bread and wine. Again, we are 
required to be frequent in the assembling of ourselves 
together for the purposes of public prayer ; and in order 
that on these occasions every thing may be done in a 
seemly manner, a graduated scale of ecclesiastical rulers 
has been established, originally Apostles and Elders, 
latterly Apostles, Elders, and Deacons, for the instruc- 
tion and government of the laity in spiritual matters, 
and for the administration of the ceremonials of divine 
worship. 

Now thus much, I repeat, we find clearly stated and 
enacted in Scripture. I am not, as I before hinted, 
going to argue the matter with those persons who, de- 
nying the authenticity of this or that part of the com- 
monly supposed canonical writings, or wresting words 
from their ordinary import, would get rid of important 
points of doctrine, or deny the Apostolical origin of our 
Church discipline. I merely say, as I have already 
said, that the New Testament, if fairly construed accor- 
ding to the obvious meaning of its language, unequivo- 
cally lays down all the doctrines which I have above 
stated. If, however, notwithstanding, men still exist, 
so unwilling to accept what we conceive to be the or- 
thodox faith, that they will mistranslate or omit impor- 
tant passages rather than swerve from their own pre- 
conceived opinions, of such men it can be no want of 
fairness or of charity to assert, that the fault lies, not in 
the obscurity of revelation, but in their own wilfulness. 
To attempt to recall such persons to the right path, by 



24 NOT TRADITION, 

calling iii the aid of tradition to reinforce Scripture, 
will obviously be an unprofitable toil. If the written 
Word will admit of sophistical misinterpretation, much 
more so will the unwritten. If they object to the un- 
bending^ rule of steel as not sufficiently accurate, they 
will not readily be persuaded to adopt the pliant and 
uncertain rule of lead as its substitute. 

Taking, then, the Holy Scriptures according to the 
hasty sketch which I have given of them, do they, I 
ask, betray any one symptom of incompleteness? Do 
they, or do they not, contain a system, a treasury, of 
spiritual knowledge, entire and symmetrical in all its 
parts? Is there any one portion of man's moral disci- 
pline on earth, any branch of his social duties, any rule 
for his practical worship of and approximation to his 
God, which is there left undeveloped and unexplained? 
I own I am at a loss to conjecture what additions or 
improvements on these points we can imagine or desire. 
The religion of Christ, we must recollect (that worship 
of God which is in spirit and truth,) consists not so 
much of details as of principles and of motives. It 
makes the root good, and takes for granted that the fruit 
will respond in quality to the nature of the stock from 
which it grows. Such was the view taken of it by our 
Lord himself when He summed up the whole of our 
duty to God and man into two simple and stringent 
rules. Such, again, was the view entertained by St. 
Paul, when he declared that the whole sum and sub- 
stance of the Gospel which he preached was but the 
expansion, and following up into all its legitimate de- 
tails, of one single principle. " I determined not to 
know any thing among you save Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified." (1 Corinthians ii. 2.) Human nature must 
be a very different thing from what it is in general sup- 
posed to be, if, in its course of spiritual discipline, it has 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 25 

to look out for other and more efficient rules and motives 
for holiness than those which are comprehended in the 
doctrines now referred to. And are we then lightly to 
throw a slur upon a rule of life thus seemingly perfect 
and symmetrical? Does no heavy responsibility attach 
to the attempt to remove the structure of our faith from 
its original sound and substantial foundation, and to 
rest it henceforward upon the basis of human inven- 
tions? Is it a small affront to God's best gift to man- 
kind to assert of it that it is indeed true, but true only 
up to a certain point; and that its deficiencies must be 
helped out by surmises and cullings of presumed tra- 
ditionary opinions, for the authenticity of which we 
have no warrant beyond our own vague conjecture? 

But, say the advocates for tradition, it is no charge 
to bring against Scripture to say of it that it does not 
perform more than the strict object for which it was 
written. The books of the New Testament were com- 
posed for the use of men who had already embraced the 
Christian doctrines; and therefore it would be requiring 
too much of them to expect that they should lay down 
fundamental principles which had already been assented 
to by those to whom they are addressed, or should 
launch out into details which had already been fore- 
stalled by the oral teaching of the Apostles. If this 
view of the question be correct, the entireness and com- 
pleteness of Scripture, as a rule of faith, must, as they 
assert, be necessarily abandoned ; and the only resource 
accordingly remaining to us is to fill up its inevitable 
omissions by those gleanings of primitive tradition which 
the course of eighteen centuries has spared. 

Now I deny, as I have already observed, the necessity 
of this conclusion. I assert, on the contrary, that there 
is an "a priori" improbability against divine inspiration 
having been afforded to an incomplete Scripture; I 



26 NOT TRADITION, 

assert also, that it is naturally to be assumed that the 
Apostles, when they did proceed to place their doctrines 
upon paper, would at all events be careful to omit 
nothing which they deemed necessary to the salvation 
of their readers. But admit, for argument's sake, the 
contrary supposition. Grant that the main teaching of 
the founders of our faith lay in oral instruction, and that 
their written works are merely a kind of rta pf pya, mere 
incidental allusion to doctrines stated elsewhere. What 
then, I ask, follows as a necessary consequence? Why 
this unsatisfactory and mortifying conclusion ; that as 
the original record has at all events not come down to 
our time, the revelation of God's will, which we now 
possess, is necessarily incomplete. We actually know 
not at this moment the whole of our religion : what it 
has been, and should be. For surely it were the merest 
gratuitous assumption, not only unsupported, but posi- 
tively contradicted by all the testimony of history, to 
assert that the oral instruction of the apostolical ages 
has been transmitted to our times in any thing like 
purity, or as capable of identification, through all the 
thousand heresies of eighteen hundred years, or the 
almost total extinction of Christian knowledge which 
prevailed over the whole of Europe, before the sera of 
the Protestant Reformation. Look at the history of the 
middle ages of Europe, and ask where were the pure 
traditions of the Church to be found in that period of 
ignorance and superstition? In the days of Innocent 
the Third, or the still more ravolting sera of Alexander 
the Sixth ? I have now lying before me a Spanish edi- 
tion of the " Hours of the Blessed Virgin," without date, 
but certainly printed during the reign of Ferdinand and 
Isabella. The very first leaf contains five short pray- 
ers, directed to be said before the image of St. Gregory ; 
for every single performance of which, with the accom- 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 27 

paniment of five Paternosters, and five Ave Marias, a 
promise of no less than 46,000 years of pardon is held 
out by no less authority than that of Paul Second, the 
pontiff of that period. Where, I ask, was the tradition 
of the Church at that moment, when the credulity of all 
Europe could bear to be thus insulted by monstrous and 
antichristian fictions? If the question be put, where 
then was true Christianity to be found in that darkened 
epoch, the answer is obvious : in Scripture and in Scrip- 
ture only. To the return to Scripture as the great rule 
of faith, Christianity a few years after that time owed 
its revival, and to our continual adherence to what we 
find written, with the exclusion of all merely human 
surmises, it is, that we are indebted for all our modern 
advances in theological knowledge. 

We have, I repeat, no escape from this dilemma. 
Either revelation, supposing it to have originally con- 
sisted of the written Scriptures and of oral tradition, is 
at this moment incomplete, the oral communication 
having been lost in the lapse of ages, and the supple- 
mentary written portion alone having descended to us; 
or, on the other hand, we must be prepared to receive 
the canonical books of the New Testament as an entire, 
full, and sufficient declaration of the will of God and 
summary of our faith. That the latter inference is the 
true one has already been attempted to be shown by 
arguments taken from the internal evidences of the 
written Scriptures. This inference, however, will ap- 
pear still more prominent, if we consider the very weak 
foundations upon which those arguments rest, which 
are usually alleged in support of the authority of tra- 
dition, as constituting an integral portion of the Chris- 
tian revelation. Those arguments it shall now be my 
object to examine. 

Now it is self-evident, that if the written Scriptures 



28 NOT TRADITION, 

do carry with them strong proofs of their own Divine 
inspiration, the claim of any merely oral communications 
(even supposing them to be really traceable to the very 
earliest ages of Christianity,) to be placed on the same 
level with the written word of God, would require to be 
supported by the strongest possible external testimony, 
before we could accept them as such. To say of any 
traditionary doctrines, conveyed in no definite form of 
words, but passing from mouth to mouth, under every 
possible modification of expression, which the personal 
feelings and wishes of the reporters may lead them to 
adopt — to assert, I say of them, that they are revelation, 
and that they are equally binding upon the belief and 
conscience with the Holy Scriptures (and such are the 
assertions which now-a-days we hear, even within the 
pale of our own Church), is surely a most startling pro- 
position. But the fact is, that all the evidence attempted 
to be adduced in favour of this theory, is of a most ques- 
tionable kind. Nothing assuredly can be more unsteady, 
or more at variance with one another, than the floating 
opinions of mankind on all grave and important sub- 
jects, that of religion more especially, when not rendered 
consistent and uniform by being compressed into a 
dogmatical form, and enunciated in definite language. 
What is wanted on such an occasion is some clear and 
authoritative record to which all may unhesitatingly 
look, and from the decisive cogency of which there lies 
no appeal. Without such an aid to give steadiness and 
fixedness to their views, the more earnestly and deeply 
that, under such circumstances, men think and feel on 
this important topic, the more certainly will they deviate 
into the extravagances of an excited judgment. The 
very best intentions, so far from affording them security, 
will often help to mislead. The weak-minded, the 
superstitious, and the ignorant become, in questions of 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 29 

faith, as dangerous guides as the hypocrite and impostor. 
False views and estimates of the divine attributes grow 
up in moments of excitement or terror; strange conceits 
for the obtaining God's favour, or for averting his wrath, 
grow successively into fashion, and divide mankind into 
sects, till the passions become heated to the verge of 
delirium, and men begin to defend from theory dogmas, 
which they had originally adopted from mere impulse. 
Such is the origin of not a few religious sects — such the 
source of many of those traditionary notions which sub- 
sequent times have consecrated, and to which the cir- 
cumstance of their antiquity has eventually attached a 
sentiment of deep veneration. Happy then, most happy 
is it, that meanwhile the written word of God undergoes 
no change, and by the permanence of its records, and 
the calmness of its precepts, enables the sincere inquirer 
after truth to subdue his extravagances, to elevate his 
deficiencies to a more perfect standard, and yet whilst 
he feels warmly, to think at the same time soberly and 
wisely. Without the operation of one continued miracle, 
in the absence of a written revelation, it were impossible 
to guard any set of human beings, however well-inten- 
tioned, from errors such as I am now describing. And 
as no continued miracle has ever been alleged, as hav- 
ing guarded the minds of the successive Christian 
generations from these easily besetting fallacies, I know 
not why we should shrink from at once asserting the 
real truth, and stating explicitly what are, and what are 
not, the true foundations on which alone we are to rest 
our eternal hopes. 

In the early part of these remarks I took a hasty sur- 
vey of the writings of the primitive Fathers, for the first 
180 years of the Christian sera. I there attempted to 
show that those good and single-minded men acknow- 
ledged no standard of faith, excepting that comprehended 



30 NOT TRADITION, 

in the written Scriptures, but at the same time I hinted, 
that practical deviations from the purity and soundness 
of the Christian doctrines had become, even in that 
simple age, slightly perceptible; and that those devia- 
tions, continually added to by the innovations of after- 
ages, were in fact the forerunners of popery, in its worst 
and darkest form. It shall now be my endeavour to 
show more in detail the gradual process of that accu- 
mulation of human inventions, which in the course of 
time effected so entire a change in the character of 
Christianity. In doing this, I shall fortunately have to 
point out, not any moral defects, but solely the errors 
and ignorances of good, but not always well judging 
men. At the same time, it will be my object to demon- 
strate that the primitive ages of Christianity, after the 
close of the apostolical period, did not possess those 
peculiar advantages for arriving at divine truth, which, 
at the present day, we are so apt to suppose. 

It is a fallacious argument which would urge their 
nearness in time to the age of the Apostles, as a proof 
that no mistakes of importance could be fallen into by 
the early Christians. Traditional truth, among imper- 
fectly educated persons, does not pass from mouth to 
mouth, with that accuracy and certainty, even during 
a very limited period of time, which we are inclined to 
imagine. On the contrary, in an age when knowledge 
circulates slowly, and the collisions of well informed 
minds with each other are comparatively rare, (and such 
was the period now alluded to,) it is surprising how 
many erroneous opinions, well intentioned, perhaps, but 
not therefore the less dangerous, may grow up within 
the space of a very few years. When the short season 
of actual contact is gone by, mere proximity or indefinite 
remoteness of time make, in fact, little or no difference 
in the degrees of evidence, which historical events are 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 31 

capable of receiving from the labours of literary men. 
A manuscript, for instance, of the gospels of the date of 
the fourth or fifth centuries, is as complete a record at 
this moment, as it was on the day in which it was 
written; and, if preserved two thousand years longer, 
will be as completely so to future generations, as it is to 
the present. A well informed historian at this moment 
has a far more accurate knowledge of the events con- 
nected with the Norman conquest, than was possessed 
by nine-tenths of the villagers of this country, who lived 
at that period. And yet it is upon this very fallacious, 
though plausible assumption, that knowledge must 
necessarily grow clearer and more certain in exact pro- 
portion as we approach to the fountain, that the argu- 
ment in favour of tradition almost exclusively rests. 

Why, one is naturally impelled to ask, should the 
primitive ages have possessed a privilege which our 
own times have not, of escaping one of the most beset- 
ting infirmities of human nature, and of transmitting 
unmixed truth orally from one generation to another, 
without any taint or superadd ition of mere human 
speculation? If, with the preservative restraint of a 
written revelation, our own age has launched forth into 
extreme notions with scarcely any common centre in 
which to agree, why are we to measure the simple and 
unsuspecting Fathers of the primitive Church by a 
different rule, and argue that, because they meant well, 
therefore divine truth orally transmitted, must neces- 
sarily have passed from them pure and unaltered ? Dr, 
Middleton has observed, that learned men have reck- 
oned about ninety different heresies, which all sprang 
up within the first three centuries. " Who knows not," 
says Bishop Jewell, "what a number of heresies arose 
when the Gospel was first propagated in the world, in 
the times of the very Apostles? Who before those 



32 NOT TRADITION, 

times ever heard of Simon Magus, Menander, Satur- 
ninus, Basilides, Carpocrates, Cerinthus, Ebion, Valen- 
tinus, Secundus, Marcosius, Colorbasius, Heracleo, 
Lucian, and Severus? But why should I mention this 
contemptible number? Epiphanius reckons eighty, and 
Augustine more, distinct heresies which grew up with 
the gospel. What then? Was not the gospel the 
gospel, because together with it so many heresies were 
produced?"* That the Holy Scriptures should have 
existed unaltered through the whole of that disturbed 
period, and "like a light shining in a dark place," 
should have served to check, in some degree, the eccen- 
tricities of human speculation, and to direct men's 
footsteps in the midst of so many conflicting opinions, 
we can well believe, and must feel thankful, that such 
no doubt was the case. But that person must have 
much more confidence in the general good sense and 
judgment of mankind than I am disposed to feel, who 
can suppose the oral communications of those successive 
ages to have descended to us equally pure; and yet, 
unless we admit them to have so descended, the whole 
argument which would set up their authority as equi- 
valent to Scripture, falls of course at once to the ground. 
Justin and Irenseus, we are told, flourished within 
the space of about 150 years from the close of our 
Lord's ministry, and, therefore, their authority on 
points of doctrine must be far superior to that of the 
best informed theologians of the present day. Without 
wishing to assert any thing bordering upon paradox, I 
must again repeat, I doubt the justice of the inference. 
In their time truth made its way slowly, and with diffi- 



* And yet there are writers of the present day, who, in order to enforce their 
theory of the authoritative teaching of the Church, assert the unanimity of doctrine, 
which, according to them, characterized the Christian community during the first 
four centuries. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 33 

culty, through comparatively isolated districts, unaided 
by that general spread of knowledge, that enlightened 
criticism, and that corrective good sense, resulting from 
an almost universal education, which is in our own day 
the great security against the growth of unsound and 
eccentric opinions. And yet, even under all these 
advantages possessed by ourselves, what has been the 
succession of sect upon sect, which has marked a period 
of the same duration, namely, the last 150 years in this 
country, from the nonjurors of the revolution in 1688, 
to the Irvingites and United Brethren of the reign of 
William the Fourth ! In both periods men have existed 
anxious only for the truth, but who have been misled 
by the warmth of their imaginations, or their want of 
the powers of due discrimination. We may accord- 
ingly respect their piety, and be desirous of imitating 
their virtues; but we are plainly outraging common 
sense, when on the strength of these qualities, we pro- 
ceed to assert, either in one case or the other, their 
emancipation from error. 

We have a singular proof in the extract given by 
Irenseus from the writings of Papius, in how very short 
a period original truth, passing through a few hands in 
the form of tradition, may be transmuted into the most 
portentous absurdity. Papius, it should be remembered, 
was Bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, and flourished 
about 90 years after our Saviour's ascension. Of course 
he might in his youth have conversed with persons 
capable of having been actual eye-witnesses of the 
events recorded in the Gospels. We are told that the 
object of his book respecting the life and conversations 
of our Lord was to rescue from oblivion such floating 
incidents, connected with that period, as might other- 
wise be lost if left to mere oral tradition. Let us now, 
then, observe how he has succeeded. AVe have St, 



34 



NOT TRADITION, 



John's inspired record of our Saviour's valedictory 
words addressed to his disciples, containing promises 
of his future protection of his Church; and we have 
also Papius's report of a similar assurance of blessings 
to be communicated to his followers in the consumma- 
tion of his heavenly kingdom. Let us then place them 
in parallel columns, and observe in what degree they 
agree with each other. 



Scripture. 

John xv ii. 

These words spake Je- 
sus, and lifted up his eyes 
to heaven, and said, Father, 
the hour is come; glorify 
thy Son, that thy Son also 
may glorify thee : As thou 
hast given him power over 
all flesh, that he should 
give eternal life to as many 
as thou hast given him. 
And this is life eternal, 
that they might know thee 
the only true God, and Je- 
sus Christ, whom thou hast 
sent. I have glorified thee 
on the earth : I have finish- 
ed the work which thou 
gavest me to do. And now, 

Father, glorify thou me 
with thine own self with 
the glory which I had with 
thee before the world was. 

1 have manifested thy name 
unto the men which thou 



Tradition. 

As the Elders remember, 
who saw John the disciple 
of the Lord, that they heard 
from him what the Lord 
taught about those times, 
and said, "The days shall 
come in wrftch vines shall 
exist, each containing 10,- 
000 shoots, and in each 
shoot shall be 10,000 arms, 
and in every true shoot 
shall be 10,000 branches, 
and on every branch 10,000 
clusters, and in every clus- 
ter 10,000 grapes, and every 
grape when pressed shall 
give 25 firkins of wine, and 
when any one of the Saints 
shall proceed to gather a 
cluster, some other cluster 
shall exclaim, "I am a bet- 
ter cluster, take me, and 
bless the Lord through 
me." In like manner a 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 



35 



Scripture. 
gavest me out of the world : 
thine they were, and thou 
gavest them me ; and they 
have kept thy word. Now 
they have known that all 
things whatsoever thou hast 
given me are of thee. For 
I have given unto them the 
words which thou gavest 
me ; and they have received 
them, and have known sure- 
ly that I came out from 
thee, and they have believ- 
ed that thou didst send me. 
I pray for them : I pray not 
for the world, but for them 
which thou hast given me ; 
for they are thine. And all 
mine are thine, and thine 
are mine : and I am glori- 
fied in them. And now I 
am no more in the world, 
but these are in the world, 
and I come to thee. Holy 
Father, keep through thine 
own name those whom thou 
hast given me, that they 
may be one, as we are. 
While I was with them in 
the world, I kept them in 
thy name : those that thou 
gavest me I have kept, and 
none of them is lost, but 
the son of perdition; that 



Tradition. 
single grain of wheat shall 
produce 10,000 ears, and 
each ear shall produce 
10,000 grains, and every 
grain shall afford 10 pounds 
weight of fine pure flour; 
and all the other fruits and 
grains and herbs shall 
abound in the same pro- 
portion, and also all ani- 
mals feeding upon those 
kinds of food which spring 
from the earth, shall be 
tame and loving to one 
another, and in all things 
subject to the accommoda- 
tion of man. 

He added also, these 
things are credible to the 
true believers. And Judas 
the traitor, not believing 
this account, and asking 
him "In what way shall 
all these productions be 
brought about by the 
Lord?" our Lord replied, 
"Those persons shall see 
them who shall partake of 
them." It was in antici- 
pation of these times that 
Isaiah prophesied saying, 
" The wolf shall dwell with 
the lamb," &c. 



36 not tradition, 

Scripture. 
the Scripture might be ful- 
filled. And now come I to 
thee; and these things I 
speak in the world, that 
they might have my joy 
fulfilled in themselves. I 
have given them thy word ; 
and the world hath hated 
them, because they are not 
of the world, even as I am 
not of the world. I pray 
not that thou shouldest take 
them out of the world, but 
that thou shouldest keep 
them from the evil. They 
are not of the world, even 
as I am not of the world. 
Sanctify them through thy 
truth: thy word is truth. 
As thou hast sent me into 
the world, even so have I 
also sent them into the 
world. And for their sakes 
I sanctify myself, that they 
also might be sanctified 
through the truth. Neither 
pray I for these alone, but 
for them also which shall 
believe on me through their 
word; That they all may 
be one ; as thou, Father, art 
in me, and I in thee, that 
they also may be one in us : 
that the world may believe 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 37 

Scripture. 
that thou hast sent me. 
And the glory which thou 
gavest me I have given 
them; that they may be 
one, even as we are one : I 
in them, and thou in me, 
that they may be made 
perfect in one ; and that the 
world may know that thou 
has sent me, and hast loved 
them, as thou hast loved 
me. Father, I will that 
they also, whom thou hast 
given me, be with me where 
I am ; that they may behold 
my glory, which thou hast 
given me : for thou lovedst 
me before the foundation 
of the world. O righteous 
Father, the world hath not 
known thee: but I have 
known thee, and these have 
known that thou hast sent 
me, And I have declared 
unto them thy name, and 
will declare it: that the 
love wherewith thou hast 
loved me may be in them, 
and I in them. 

It were to insult the common sense and understanding 
of my readers, were I to stop to point out the entire 
dissimilarity between the awful and thrilling sentiments 
contained in the former of these quotations, and the 



38 

trifling childishness of the latter. And yet as I have 
already remarked scarcely a longer interval elapsed 
than that of a single human life, between the period of 
the earthly ministry of Him who spake as never man 
spake, and the time when Papius was treasuring up 
this wretched specimen of tradition ; a document more 
resembling in character a page transcribed at random 
from the Koran, than representing the sublime sim- 
plicity and divine wisdom of the gospel.* 

I make these remarks not for the purpose of depreci- 
ating the Scriptural attainments of the early Fathers of 
the Church, or of lowering their just authority, which 
will ever have its due weight in all well disposed and 
Christian minds, but merely to show that we must still 
judge of them as men, liable to error, and to be consi- 



* Another passage, still extant, from the work of Papius affords a second remark- 
able instance of the strange absurdities which so early as the close of the first cen- 
tury, oral tradition was beginning to impose upon mankind as authentic verities. 
A belief, it seems, prevailed, in direct contradiction to the narrative in the book of 
the Acts, that Judas the traitor did not die by strangulation, nor by the effects of 
his fall, but that he lived sometime afterwards in a frightful state of disease, a 
walking instance of God's retributive vengeance. "Judas," says Papius, "walked 
about in this world a great example of the effects of impiety; being so much 
swollen in his body, that he could not find room to pass through an opening which 
a cart could easily be led through; and thus he was crushed by a cart, and his 
entrails squeezed out from his body." A subsequent variation of this story, which 
prevailed in the 4th century, adds to the above facts, amongst other particulars, the 
circumstance, that his head was so much swollen, as to exceed in dimensions the 
size of a cart, and that his eyes were in consequence so deeply sunk within the 
projecting flesh, that no optical instrument of the surgeon could render them visible. 
Ilp^tffotj irii fotiovtov Tlrjy ffapjca, utats (jt,<q 8s brtodsv d/xa%a £aSuoj Siip^Etfat, 
ixslvov 8vvaa9at 8i>t%dslv. °AM.<x ^ 8s av-tbv fiovov tbv ffj$ x*<J>atoy$ byxov avtov. 
Ta [asv yap j3As<|>apa tojp 6$0afyuov avtov, $atft, tosovtov E'iocSjjtfat, wj avtbv fisv 
xaBo'Kov to <?>ws i^rj )3Xf 7isw. Toi>j ofydahfiovs 8s avtov [ha\ 8s vrtb Latpov 8iort,tpa$ 
bfydiqvat 8vva6dat' toaovtov fid9o$ ti%ov drtb tvfi s^aOsv STt^avsla^ * * * * » 
Mfta rtoXhus 8s fiaadvovs xai ti(ic*pla$) Iv I8l<j>, $actt, Z^9 tsKsvtqtiavta, xai 
tol$ irti fys 68ov spyfiov xai dvolxqtov to %o>pt,ov fis%po trj$ vvv ytvsoOat,' d%% 
ovSf /is^pt- tyj{ Oriiispov 8vvaedai tiva sxslvov tbv tortov rtapsT^Oscv, lav jxvj ids 
/Waj ratj %tprsiv frtnj>pa|^. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 39 

dered as speaking the words of infallible truth, only 
when they refer to those selfsame written records of the 
divine will, which, by God's blessing, have descended 
uncorrupted to ourselves. The fact is, that the moment 
that we compare the writings of the Apostles with those of 
the primitive Christian Fathers, we perceive at once that, 
in passing from the former to the latter, we have crossed 
the boundary of inspiration, and have to do hencefor- 
ward with mere fallible human beings. One of the 
circumstances which strikes us as an internal evidence 
of the divine aid afforded to the apostolical writers, is 
the quiet, dispassionate, and sober manner in which 
they dwell upon those sublime or soul-harrowing truths 
which uninspired authors would not have been content 
to detail, without, at the same time, attempting either 
to paralyze us with terror, or to elevate us to the high- 
est point of imaginative exaltation. Another of their 
characteristics, and a remarkable one it is, is their en- 
tire freedom from those mistakes with respect to physi- 
cal facts, which, in an ill-informed age, a writer almost 
necessarily falls into, and which at once disprove his 
claims to infallibility. Now let the future advances of 
physical science be what they may, we may say with 
certainty that no fatal error with respect to natural 
facts ever will, or ever can be found in the writings of 
St. Paul or of St. Peter. And yet pass on but a single 
step further, and take up the Epistle of Clemens Ro- 
manus, and we find that good and really enlightened 
man, not merely illustrating the Christian doctrine of 
the resurrection by the legend of the phoenix, but abso- 
lutely asserting the existence of that fabulous bird as 
an established fact in natural history. Now it is true 
that this is undoubtedly a pardonable blunder. It was 
as gravely stated, at about the same period, as an estab- 
lished physical truth, by the strong-minded historian 



40 NOT TRADITION, 

Tacitus ; and the belief in it certainly proves nothing 
whatever against the soundness of the doctrines, and 
the true Christian piety of the friend and companion of 
St. Paul. But then it is equally certain on the other 
hand, that a mis-statement of this description proves 
that the writer committing it was at all events not in- 
spired; that opinions delivered by him, unless borne 
out by Scripture, must be received as human opinions 
only, and that traditions descending to us through such 
a channel can never be fairly set up in rivalry to, or as 
concurrent and equal with, the inspired writings of the 
Apostles. A remark of a similar character may be 
made with respect to the epistles of his immediate fol- 
lower Ignatius. The unostentatious good sense in the 
recommendations of our Saviour and of his Apostle 
Paul to the early Christians, that they should not un- 
necessarily incur persecutions from the Jews or the 
heathen authorities, but should do what they could 
innocently to put their persons in security, is strongly 
characteristic of that calm practical wisdom which I 
have already alluded to as so singularly pervading the 
sacred writings. " When they persecute you in this 
city," said our Lord, "flee ye into another." (Matt. x. 
23). " Walk in wisdom toward them that are without" 
(Coloss. iv. 5). " The Lord stood with me and strength- 
ened me ; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the 
lion." (2 Tim. iv. 17). "In Damascus the governor 
under Aretas the king kept the city of the Damascenes 
with a garrison, desirous to apprehend me ; and through 
a window in a basket was I let down by the wall, and 
escaped his hands" (2 Cor. xi. 33), were the words of 
his chosen Apostle. Here we cannot but observe that 
exact medium between ostentatious rashness on the 
one hand, and a timid denial of the truth on the other, 
which marks the extreme of good sense, and which, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 41 

in a period of high excitement, we rarely, if ever, see 
realized. But up to this point was the age of inspira- 
tion. After the close of the apostolic period, the tran- 
sition to a more showy, and, according to our carnal 
notions, a more attractive righteousness, began to mani- 
fest itself, slight indeed at first, but obviously the com- 
mencement of that exaggerated self-denying spirit so 
natural to the human mind when seeking to work out 
its own sanctification by the mortification of the body. 
It were surely impossible to mistake the following sen- 
timents for those of St. Paul, or of any of the heaven- 
directed Apostles. " I beseech you," are the words of 
Ignatius to the Romans, deprecating their interference 
for the purpose of preventing his matyrdom, " that you 
show not an unseasonable good-will towards me. Suf- 
fer me to be food to the wild beasts, by whom I shall 
attain to God. Encourage the wild beasts, that they 
may become my sepulchre. May I enjoy the wild 
beasts that are prepared for me; which also I wish may 
exercise all their fierceness upon me, — and whom, for 
that end, I will encourage, that they may be sure to 
devour me, and not serve me as they have done some, 
whom out of fear they have not touched. But, if they 
will not do it willingly, I will provoke them to it." In 
these sentiments, however sincerely conceived, I repeat, 
we detect at one glance a deviation from the meek and 
unpretending spirit of the apostolical age. But as we 
recede further from the primitive times, this deviation 
becomes gradually still more perceptible. Upon turn- 
ing to the writings of Justin Martyr, we at once per- 
ceive (conjointly, indeed, with abundance of sound and 
fervent piety,) a deficiency of judgment, and an absence 
of critical accuracy and sound sense in his expositions 
of Scripture, which at once appear to disqualify him 
from speaking with even the semblance of authority 

F 



42 NOT TRADITION, 

upon mere traditional topics. He who knows not how 
to convey even a written message correctly, will scarce- 
ly speak with much weight when reporting solely from 
memory and from his own private impressions. But it 
is impossible to read the works of Justin without occa- 
sional feelings of astonishment at the strange inferences 
which he draws from Holy Writ ; to say nothing of his 
verbal inaccuracies, which often appear to mark rather 
quotations made from memory, than to be references to 
the recorded text. Take the following specimens of his 
inconclusive reasoning. What are we to think, for in- 
stance, of his deriving the prevalence of moral evil in 
later times from the influence of demons, the progeny 
of angels having commerce with the antediluvian fe- 
males ? of his discovering, as he imagines, a prophecy 
of our Lord's crucifixion in the expression, "I have 
spread out my hands all the day unto a rebellious peo- 
ple" (Isaiah lxv. 2) ; or more strangely still, in another 
passage of the same prophet, " the government (i. e., as 
he chooses to construe it, the power of the cross) shall 
be upon his shoulder"* (Isaiah ix. 6). Of his discov- 
ering the holy symbol of the cross in the masts of ship- 
ping, in the implements of husbandry, in the tools of 
the carpenter, and even in the position of the nose and 
eyebrows in the human face, and of his considering this 



* This fondness for strained applications of texts of Scripture to events entirely 
unconnected with them, is by no means confined to Justin, but was common to 
most of the early Christian writers. The following texts are quoted by Cyprian, 
in addition to those given above, as prophetic of our Lord's crucifixion, with the 
same disregard to their original and obvious meaning. 

" And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, 
and shalt have none assurance of thy life." — Deuteronomy xxviii. 66. 

" Let the lifting up of my hand be as an evening sacrifice." — Psalm cxli. 

" I have called daily upon Thee : I have stretched out my hands unto Thee." — 
Psalm lxxxviii. 

" God is not a man that he should lie, (i. e. be in suspense) neither the son of man 
that he should repent." — Numbers xxiii. 19. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 43 

last mentioned strange idea as actually alluded to in the 
words of Jeremiah, " The breath of our nostrils, the 
anointed of the Lord" (Lamentations iv. 20). How, 
again, shall we defend the accuracy of his theological 
opinions, when we find him not only arguing in favour 
of the salvability of the holier heathens (a doctrine in 
which most Christians will probably agree with him), 
but even attempting to show that, inasmuch as our Lord 
was the a6 7 os — the impersonation of the Divine wisdom; 
therefore, all persons possessed of any high degree of 
wisdom, such as Socrates and others, were actual 
Christians ? I am far, very far, from urging that these, 
or the many other instances of unsound judgment or 
ignorance which are to be found in his writings ought 
to diminish our respect for a holy and single minded 
man, who proved the sincerity of his faith by laying 
down his life in its cause ; but surely one may without 
censure withhold his confidence and assent, when called 
upon to accept, as a revelation from heaven, traditionary 
opinions or doctrines transmitted to us through such a 
channel. 

I have already taken notice of the argument that the 
early Fathers, as approaching nearer than ourselves to 
the apostolical age, must be better judges than we can 
be of what is sound or unsound in theology ; and I have 
assigned my reasons why I conceive this argument 
unsound. But, perhaps, if there are any points in which 
proximity of time would appear to give- the primitive 
Christians an advantage over ourselves with respect to 
the means of better information, it would be those sim- 
ple historical facts, unconnected with doctrine, which 
at least might naturally be supposed to descend unal- 
tered through several successive generations. And yet, 
even upon these very points, at how comparatively early 
a period do we find traditional accuracy fail us ! Ire- 



44 NOT TRADITION, 

naeus was, we know, the disciple of Polycarp, who 
again was the disciple of St. John. Surely a plain, 
single, historical, circumstance, which had to pass 
through only two intermediate hands, may be supposed 
to have reached him unaltered. We can scarcely 
imagine a more direct channel of communication than 
that which must have conveyed to him the broad and 
obvious events of our Saviour's life. And yet we know 
that he has asserted (for no better reason, so far as we 
can understand, than for that of supporting a fanciful 
theory respecting the several divisions of human life, 
and of illustrating very unnecessarily a text in Scrip- 
ture, (John viii. 57), that our Lord must have reached 
nearly the fiftieth year of his age at the time of his 
crucifixion;* in order to make out which circumstance, 
he gratuitously inserts, contrary to the express declara- 
tion of the four evangelists, a period of upwards of fif- 
teen years between his baptism and the commencement 
of his ministry. Why, we may surely ask, should 
other more intricate and less palpable truths be sup- 
posed to descend to us unchanged, through a course of 
eighteen centuries, by mere oral transmission, if a per- 
son possessed of such means of arriving at the truth, 
nourishing within one hundred and fifty years of our 
Lord's crucifixion, could make so strange a mistake 
with regard to a simple event of mere history ? 

It being absolutely necessary, if we would attach any 
real authority to tradition, that we should prove its 
actual connexion with the apostolical age, it seems 
scarcely to be required that I should follow up this line 
of argument farther, if it has been already shown that 
between the close of the apostolic period and the death 
of Irenseus, not only no recorded sanction can be found 

* Adversus Hsres. lib ii. c. 39. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 45 

in favour of authoritative tradition, but that, on the con- 
trary, from the obvious inaccuracies of the few writers 
of that time, a strong presumption is established against 
it. Still, however, it may be worth while to look on- 
ward a little further, if it is only to show that the sub- 
sequent course of time was quite in harmony with the 
preceding, and that the accumulation of human inven- 
tions in religion was a gradual process which did not at 
once attain to full maturity. 

The period then which immediately followed the age 
of Irenaeus was one in which those canons of sound 
criticism, the observance of which is so absolutely neces- 
sary for testing the accuracy of recorded facts, or the 
authenticity of written records, were little, if at all stu- 
died. Opinions capriciously assumed, and accepted by 
subsequent writers implicitly and without inquiry, were 
lightly transmitted from hand to hand, often in the 
selfsame words, or at all events, differing little in sub- 
stance. Spurious productions also, bearing the names 
of primitive or of apostolical writers, began now to make 
their appearance, and for want of that quick-sightedness 
in works of literature, which none but a learned and 
studious people can ever possess, succeeded to an almost 
incredible extent in imposing upon the ready belief of 
the readers of that period. We cannot have a stronger 
illustration of this circumstance than the testimony 
which was given by such distinguished men as Clemens 
Alexandrinus and Origen to the authenticity of that 
singularly wild composition, the apocryphal epistle of 
Barnabas; a work which, from the strange interpola- 
tions and misrepresentations of the Levitical law, and 
the many gross blunders* which it contains, would 



* Such, for instance, as the supposition, evidently implied, that the patriarch 
Abraham must have spoken Greek. 



46 NOT TRADITION, 

appear at once to carry with it its own refutation. But 
for these the reader is referred to the elaborate disserta- 
tion upon this and the other spurious works of antiquity, 
by the Rev. Jeremiah Jones. It may, however, be here 
worth observing, that amongst other mistakes into which 
the unknown author of this work has fallen, he has com- 
mitted one which by a singular coincidence a century 
later was repeated by the celebrated Lactantius; a 
blunder so gross, that the mere fact of its transmission 
to our times seems to mark the age which did not at 
once reject it, as strangely deficient even in the most 
commonly required knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. 
I allude to the celebrated prophecy respecting Cyrus, 
which occurs in Isaiah xlv. 1. It seems scarcely cre- 
dible that both the writers above mentioned, quoting 
the Old Testament from the Greek of the Septuagint 
instead of the original Hebrew, should have been so 
ignorant of that most remarkable Scripture fact, as to 
have read the word Ki5p«>$ instead of Kipos; and thus, mis- 
taking the real meaning of the passage, have applied 
the passage in question solely to the person of Christ. 
Toj Xptsra /xov Kvply, are the words of the former : " Sic dicit 
Dominus Deus Christo Domino meo,"* are the words 
of the latter. What would be thought of the biblical 
knowledge of any writer of the present day who could 
commit such a mistake as the above? and what then 
must we think of the weight of authority attached to 
the oral traditions of an age which could transmit such 
an one unnoticed and uncensured ?f I am aware, indeed, 



* Lactantii de Vera Sapientia, lib. iv. cap. 12. 

t Another and a singular instance of the implicit credulity with which some of 
the early Christian writers adopted the statements of their predecessors, often in 
defiance of the most accessible historical evidence to the contrary, and with a total 
absence of critical discrimination, occurs in the reference made by Eusebius, in the 
13th chapter of the 2d book of his Ecclesiastical History to the narrative of Justin 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 47 

with respect to Lactantius, that he has generally been 
considered much more of a rhetorician than a divine, and 
that as a reasoner he has justly been held cheap : still, 
as a popular writer may always be presumed in some 
degree to represent the tone of feeling and acquirements 
of the period in which he lives, we may surely, without 
any breach of charity, attribute some portion of the 
ignorance here displayed to the contemporaries for 
whom he writes. Let me now add another specimen 
of this same author's mode of discussing points of Chris- 
tian doctrine, and then leave the reader to judge of the 
state of the science of theology at that time, and how 
far the revelations of Scripture are likely to be rendered 
clearer by illustrations of the following description. 
"Our Saviour," says he, "is clearly of a different 
nature from the angels, inasmuch as he is the Word, 
whereas they are merely the Spirit (i. e. breath) of God. 
Now a word is not merely breath, but breath accom- 
panied by speech; and as breath and speech proceed 
from different parts of the body, breath issuing from the 
nostrils, and speech from the mouth, there must of neces- 
sity be a vast difference between the Son of God and 
the angels."* 



Martyr, respecting the asserted deification of Simon Magus by the Roman people. 
The strange blunder committed by Justin in mistaking a pillar erected on the island 
of the Tiber to Semo Sancus, an old Sabine deity, to whom allusion is made in the 
20th chapter of the 8th book of Livy, for a monument in honour of the impostor 
Simon Magus, is a matter of notoriety. Now surely it is no exaggeration to assert, 
that had any writer of modern times committed a mistake of this gross character 
in relating an historical fact, the exposure would have been immediate, and his 
name would have ceased, as a matter of course, to be quoted as an authority. And 
yet on this occasion we find Eusebius, after an interval of no less than 150 years, 
from the time of Justin, repeating his statement without the slightest apparent mis- 
giving as to its accuracy; although the inscription in question recorded upon a 
public monument, and the passage in Livy above referred to, might have put any 
common inquirer during the whole of that long period in possession of the real fact." 
* " Cautum est (in Scripturis) ilium Dei Filium Dei esse sermonem : itemque 
ccteros angelos Dei Spiritus esse. Nam sermo est spiritus cum voce aliquid signU 



48 NOT TRADITION, 

From this period the progress of innovation advanced 
with a rapidly accelerated pace, so that before the close 
of the fourth century, a vast portion of the abuses of the 
simple spirit of Christianity, which human invention, 
in the vain attempt to improve the best gift of Pro- 
vidence, has superadded to primitive revelation, and 
which have subsequently been matured into Popery in 
its worst form, had become almost completely estab- 
lished. Monkery, accompanied by a spirit of asceticism 
more worthy of the fakirs of Hindostan than of the fol- 
lowers of Christ; the adoration of relics; exorcisms; 
prayers for the dead; the sacrifice, as it now began 
generally to be called, of the Eucharist; with an unsus- 
pecting readiness of belief in the most monstrous 
legends,* form henceforward the leading character- 
istics of the period. The spiritual worship of God, as 
taught in Scripture, and approximation to Him through 
faith in the one great Sacrifice, once offered, had now 
given place to unmeaning external ceremonies and rites, 
which, whilst professing to be part of the forms of Chris- 
tian worship, had notwithstanding, much nearer resem- 
blance to the superstitious usages of heathenism than to 
the pure souLstirring devotion of the Gospel. The 
spirit of Christianity, indeed, still existed T but it existed 
under the superincumbent weight of a portentous mass 
of superstition. It is surely impossible not to perceive 
under how entire a misapprehension of the genius of 
our religion the world at that time lay, when we find 
even Augustine himself speaking with approbation of 
the performance of the Eucharistic sacrifice for the pur- 



ficante prolatus. Sed tamen, quoniam spiritus et sermo diversis partibus proferun- 
tur; siquidem spiritus naribus, ore sermo procedit, magna in hunc Dei Filium et 
ceteros angelos differentia est." De Vera Sapientia, lib. iv. cap. 8. 

* See for instance the strange narrative of miracles attributed to Gregory Thau- 
maturgus in the life of that Saint, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 49 

pose of removing a murrain among cattle, supposed to 
have been produced by the operation of evil demons;* 
or again gravely recounting a miraculous vision sent by 
the Almighty for no better purpose than that of dis- 
covering the interred bones of Gervasius and Protasius, 
after their concealment during the space of two cen- 
turies, and affording a divine sanction to a superstitious, 
not to say an idolatrous, species of worship, f Let the 
reader only cast his eye over the eighth chapter of the 
22d book of the "De Civitate Dei," just now referred 
to, or to the still more strange legends gravely related 
by Sulpicius Severus, at about the same period, and he 
cannot but admit that, however abundant in other res- 
pects the age of which we are now speaking may have 
been in works of true piety and in fervour of religious 
feeling, still that at all events strong judgment and calm 
good sense were not to be numbered among its excel- 
lences. And yet let it be remembered, that through 
this very period, and through periods even still darker 
than this, must the oral traditions of the Church have 
descended, and have descended unimpaired, if they are 
to be accepted by us at the present day as sound por- 
tions of the primitive teaching of the Apostles. Surely 
we might as reasonably expect that the Jordan, could it 
recover its original and obliterated channel, would re- 
appear from the saltness of the Dead Sea as fresh and 
pure as when it first entered it, as that mere verbal 
communications on some of the most mysterious pro- 
blems that can possibly occupy the thoughts of man, 
should have passed on from individual to individual for 
the space of eighteen centuries, unadulterated by the 
false theories with which they would necessarily come 



* De Civitate Dei, lib. xxiL cap. 8. 
f Confessionum, lib. ix. cap. 8. 

G 



50 NOT TRADITION, 

into collision, the exaggerations of mistaken piety, the 
dreams of superstition, or the mistakes of ignorance. 
And yet such is the rival which we are earnestly 
called upon at this moment, and by influential members 
of our own church, to set up as of equal and concurrent 
authority with holy writ! A rival, asserted by Mr. 
Keble to be " parallel to Scripture, not derived from it; 
and consequently fixing the interpretation of disputed 
texts, not simply by the judgment of the Church, but 
by the authority of that Holy Spirit which inspired the 
oral teaching itself, of which such tradition is the re- 
cord." And for the recovery of this " good deposit" we 
are told by the same author that "present opportunities 
of doing good; external quietness, peace, and order ; a 
good understanding with the temporal and civil power ; 
the love and co-operation of those committed to our charge; 
— these, and all other pastoral consolations must be given 
up, though it be with a heavy heart, rather than we 
should yield one jot or tittle of the faith once delivered 
by the Saints." A high and portentous price this, 
surely, for the forlorn hope of obtaining so very equi- 
vocal a possession ! Most of my readers are probably 
well acquainted with the efforts which have been made 
for some time past in this University, by means of 
periodical publications, and on more than one marked 
occasion, by exhortations from the pulpit, to establish 
the opinions which I am now deprecating. With 
regard to the authors of these publications and dis- 
courses, I wish to speak of them, so far as I am ac- 
quainted with them personally or by common report, 
with all the respect that they justly deserve, for their 
admitted learning, their talents, and the purity and 
holiness of their lives. But I cannot, nor do I wish to 
conceal my opinion, that the doctrines which they advo- 
cate, should they become popular, would in other hands 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 51 

be essentially injurious to the cause of pure Protest- 
antism, and with it to sound Christianity, in this 
country. In this case, the respectability of the advo- 
cates must not make us blind to the danger likely to 
ensue from the principles which they adopt* The 
integrity and sufficiency of the written revelation of 
God's will has been openly and systematically impugned 
by them. We have been told distinctly, that as the 
New Testament was written for the use of men pre- 
viously converted to the Christian faith, it contains the 
scheme of the Christian doctrines only in such measure 
as might be expected from words intended rather to 
remind men of what they already know, than to instruct 



* The following extracts from the writings of a late contributor to the " Tracts 
for the Times," published by his friends, will show that the feelings of at least 
some members of the body superintending those publications can scarcely be said 
to be friendly to Protestantism. 

" I should like to know why you flinch from saying that the power of making 
the body and blood of Christ is vested in the successors of the Apostles." Froude's 
Remains, vol. i. p. 326. 

" I verily believe that he (P.) would now gladly consent to see our Communion 
Service replaced by a good translation of the Liturgy of St. Peter; a name which I 

advise you to substitute in your notes to for the obnoxious phrase 'Mass 

Book.' " lb. p. 387. 

" I am led to question whether justification by faith is an integral part of this 
doctrine (i.e. the doctrine necessary to salvation.") lb. p. 332. 

"Why do you praise Ridley? Do you know any sufficient good about him to 
counterbalance the fact that he was the associate of Cranmer, Peter Martyr, and 
Bucer?" lb. pp. 293, 294. 

"Really I hate the Reformation and the Reformers more and more." lb. 389. 

" The Reformation was a limb badly set. It must be broken again in order to 
be righted." lb. p. 433. 

" I must say a word or two on your casual remark about the unpopularity of 
our notions among ' Bible Christians.' Don't you think Newton's system would be 
unpopular among ' sky astronomers,' just in the same way ? The phenomena of the 
heavens are repugnant to Newton, just in the same way as the letter of Scripture 
to the Church, i. e. on the assumption that they contradict every notion which they 
do not make self-evident, which is the basis of 'Bible Christianity' and also of Pro- 
testantism; and of which your trumpery principles about 'Scripture being the sole 
rule in fundamentals' (I nauseate the word), is but a mutilated edition." lb. pp. 
412, 413. 



52 NOT TRADITION, 

them in first principles. That accordingly it rather 
alludes to doctrines, than states what those doctrines 
really are. That a person, previously prepared by 
catechetical instruction in the orthodox teaching trans- 
mitted by tradition, may indeed find all the necessary 
truths of Christianity virtually announced in Holy Writ, 
but that without such previous discipline of the under- 
standing he would probably search there for these in 
vain. It is assumed (and, as it appears to me, most 
gratuitously assumed), that, because the time once 
existed in the Church's infancy, when the first Apostles 
preached only by word of mouth, therefore that mode 
of arriving at truth is at this moment necessary for 
attaining to certainty in matters of faith, and that there 
must still be certain outlying doctrines, forming an 
integral portion of revelation, which have never yet 
been embodied in inspired Scripture, but are to be 
picked up only by an humble and laborious search into 
the opinions and teaching of primitive antiquity. It 
has been asserted, that even the fundamental doctrine 
of the blessed Trinity, though undoubtedly so far con- 
tained in Scripture, that every one prepared by previous 
oral instruction may clearly recognise it there, is still 
so indistinctly stated, that the mere Bible student would 
almost necessarily overlook it, and proceed onwards to 
Socinianism; and that even where the purport of any 
passage of Scripture appears entirely clear and satis- 
factory to our own minds, still we are bound to surrender 
our own judgment, should our construction of the 
meaning of the sentence appear to be contrary to what 
we have reason to believe to have been the view taken 
of it by the primitive church.* Now if these opinions 



? All the above opinions will be familiar with the present residents of this Uni- 
versity, as having been advocated from the pulpit. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 53 

are really such as I now describe them (and it is far 
from my wish to overrate or misrepresent them), then I 
own I see not how it is possible to adopt them without 
suffering a diminished respect for the sacred writings, 
and, instead of looking to an infallible and tangible 
revelation of God's will, finding ourselves left to hunt 
after truth among all the shifting caprices and inven- 
tions of human speculation. And surely we may well 
ask, Can this really be so? Is it, can it be, essential to 
a sound faith, that we should surrender the verdict of 
our own deliberate' judgment in the attempt to under- 
stand the plain text of Scripture, merely because a 
certain number of uninspired human beings, like our- 
selves, may have thought otherwise? — men not removed 
indeed so far as ourselves from the apostolic age in point 
of time, but perhaps more separated from it than even 
we ourselves are at the present day, by the interrupted 
intercourse of man with man which prevailed at that 
period, by the scanty circulation of their literature, and 
their ignorance of the necessary canons of sound cri- 
ticism. If we begin to adopt merely human dogmas, 
solely because they are ancient, where, it will naturally 
be asked, are we to stop? What is to limit us to the 
first seemingly unimportant deviation from or super- 
addition to the strict letter of Scripture, and to check 
us from proceeding through all the gradations of a slowly 
but uniformly deepening superstition? Let us imagine 
the case of a human being who had derived his whole 
knowledge of the Christian religion from the perusal of 
the New Testament, and who had never heard of the 
distinction of sects into which the Church is now unfor- 
tunately divided, and let us suppose that person to be 
led into a Romish place of worship, and to be told that 
he should see the rite of our Lord's last supper per- 
formed according to his parting injunction. Well then. 



54 

The priest appears singly at an altar in his splendid 
attire. He performs sundry mysterious gesticulations 
in silence. He turns his back to the congregation; he 
holds up a wafer ; a bell rings, and the whole assemblage 
drop upon their knees. We can well imagine the 
unconcern with which the person here supposed would 
look on at this strange isolated ceremony, the natural 
curiosity with which he would ask when the celebration 
which he came to witness would commence, and his 
utter astonishment and incredulity when he should be 
told that what he had already seen was that very cele- 
bration. And yet, remote as in every circumstance is 
the ceremony of the mass from the Eucharistic rite as 
instituted by our Saviour, the transition has been one 
of minute and almost imperceptible gradations. Men, 
in their attempts to improve or to add solemnity to the 
original institution, suggested day after day their res- 
pective seemingly innocent conceits, until in the course 
of time the most holy, affecting, and soul-stirring ordi- 
nance of our religion thus changed its whole form and 
character. And so will it be with the other integral 
portions of the Christian doctrine, unless we take our 
stand firmly, inexorably, and obstinately, at the com- 
mencement of the very first deviation from what we 
find written, and point to the record of God's word as 
the only acknowledged foundation of our faith. It 
seems at first sight a harsh and cold-minded scrupulous- 
ness to check the workings of a devout and enthusiastic 
imagination, anxious only to do justice to, and to develop 
all the recondite mysteries which it supposes to be wrapt 
up in some point of revealed doctrine : but fatal expe- 
rience has shown how dangerous it is to indulge this 
disposition to advance beyond what God has expressly 
revealed. Once give the reins to an unchecked fancy, 
excite the religious mind by allowing it to plunge into 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 55 

the depths of mysticism, or please the eye by the glitter 
of an ostentatious ceremonial, and it becomes difficult 
to set any bounds to the deviousness of our course. As 
age succeeds to age, theories and ceremonies accumulate 
in rapid succession, until the form and substance of 
religion has undergone an almost entire change. Then 
at length arrives the time in which it is necessary either 
to acknowledge ourselves in error, discarding our long- 
cherished delusion, and manfully returning to the point 
from which we set out; or, what is much more gratify- 
ing to human pride, boldly to vindicate the line we have 
taken, either by wresting the words of revelation from 
their original purport until they answer our purpose, or 
setting up the sanction of an assumed tradition in direct 
opposition to it. Such is the course openly avowed by 
the Church of Rome; and such must in some degree be 
the course of every denomination of Christians who look 
for the groundwork of their faith beyond the boundary 
of what they find written. 

I am well aware how indignantly, and beyond all 
doubt, sincerely and conscientiously, the champions of 
the party already adverted to repel from themselves the 
imputation of Popery. That they do not indeed adopt 
the gross and extreme errors of the Church of Rome 
must be obvious to all acquainted with their writings. 
But I cannot therefore, I own, as an individual, shut 
my eyes to the dangerous tendency of their opinions. 
They may themselves indeed stop short, before they 
seriously transgress the boundary of scriptural and 
evangelical truth. But will their humble imitators, 
will men who, without their talents, their learning, and 
their fervent piety, look up to them as patterns — will 
they be content to confine themselves within the same 
limits? We hear much now-a-days of the golden age of 
English theology, the divines of the reigns of Charles 



56 NOT TRADITION, 

L and II. It ought at once to instil a caution into us 
against the implicit adoption of all the principles of 
even the very best men of that period, that the progress 
of political events had in those days generated a bitter- 
ness and exasperation of feeling, with a tendency to 
extreme and uncompromising distinctions in matters of 
religion, highly unfavourable to the due discussion of 
truth. No candid person can at this moment believe 
that Laud was insincere in his solemn disavowals of 
the extreme doctrines of the Church of Home. Yet 
who can read the history of the ecclesiastical events in 
which he was engaged, and not feel that the bias of his 
mind lay in a very different direction from that of the 
great and powerful minds who brought about the Refor- 
mation, and established our Church upon a purely 
scriptural basis? We all remember the remarkable 
entry in his journal, bearing date, August 17, 1633. 

" Saturday. I had a serious offer made me again to 
be a Cardinal. I was then from court : but so soon as 
I came thither, (which was Wednesday, August 21,) I 
acquainted his majesty with it. But my answer again 
was, that somewhat dwelt within me, which would not 
suffer that, till Rome were other than it is." 

Here, no doubt, is an express disavowal of uniformity 
of opinion with the Romish Church ; and yet we cannot 
but remark with how little surprise a Protestant Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury appears to have received this 
strange communication. 

But we have also another instance on record of the 
dangers resulting to Protestantism from the adoption of 
that "Via media" which characterized the theology of 
the age of the Stuarts. Anne Hyde, the Duchess of 
York, died, it will be remembered, a convert to her 
husband's religion. In a paper published after her 
death, from her own autograph, the following reasons 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 57 

are assigned for her apostacy from the creed of her child- 
hood. " I made it," are her words, " my continual request 
to Almighty God that, if I were not, I might before I 
died, be in the true religion. I did not in the least doubt 
but that I was so, and never had any manner of scruple 
till November last; when reading a book called 'the his- 
tory of the Reformation' by Dr. Heylin, which I had 
heard very much commended, and had been told, if ever 
I had any doubt in my religion, that would settle me ; 
instead of which, I found it the description of the hor- 
ridest sacrileges in the world; &c. * * * These scru- 
ples being raised, I began to consider of the difference 
between the Catholics and us; and examined them as 
well as I could, by the holy Scripture; which, though 
I do not pretend to be able to understand, yet there are 
some things I found so easy, that I cannot but wonder 
I had been so long without finding them out; as, the 
real presence in the blessed Sacrament, the infallibility 
of the Church, confession, and praying for the dead. 
After this I spoke severally to two of the best Bishops 
we have in England, (Dr. Sheldon, Archbishop of Can- 
terbury, and Dr. Blanford, Bishop of Worcester,) who 
both told me there were many things in the Roman 
Church which it were very much to be wished w 7 e had 
kept; as confession, which was, no doubt, commanded 
by God : that praying for the dead was one of the most 
antient things in Christianity ; that for their parts they 
did it daily, though they would not own it. And after- 
wards pressing one of them (Dr. Blanford) very much 
upon the other points, he told me, that if he had been 
bred a Catholic he would not change his religion; but 
that being of another church, wherein he was sure, were 
all things necessary to salvation, he thought it very ill 
to give that scandal as to leave that church wherein he 
had received his baptism." It is, I repeat this leaning, 

H 



58 NOT TRADITION, 

not actually to popery itself, but assuredly in the direc- 
tion of popery, which constitutes, in my mind, the 
danger to be apprehended from the school of theology, 
attempted within the last few years to be set up in this 
University. That the leading writers of that party, 
sincerely as no doubt they believe themselves to be 
doing good service to the established Church of England, 
are in some degree swayed by such a bias, I cannot, I 
own, from the general tenor of their publications,* for 
a moment doubt. It is true that many of them are very 
far from agreeing in the abstract principle of placing 



* A symptom of the bias aboye alluded to, may be observed in the Church Calen- 
dar for the present year, emanating from this party. Amongst other things con- 
nected with Church matters, it contains four short pieces of poetry selected from 
the works of George Herbert: from the last of which the following lines are an 
extract. The title is, " To all angels and Saints." One surely cannot doubt the 
state of feeling which led to their insertion. 

" Not out of envy or maliciousness 
Do I forbear to crave your special aid. 

I would address 
My vows to Tliee most gladly, blessed maid, 
And mother of my God, in my distress: 
Thou art the holy mine, whence came the gold, 
The great restorative for all decay 

In young and old : 
Thou art the cabinet, where the jewel lay : 
Chiefly to Thee would I my soul unfold. 
But now, alas! I dare not: for our King, 
Whom we do all jointly adore and praise, 

Bids no such thing: 
And where his pleasure no injunction lays 
('Tis your own case) ye never move a wing. 
All worship is prerogative, and a flower 
Of his rich crown, from whom lies no appeal 

At the last hour: 
Therefore we dare not from his garland steal, 
To make a posy for inferior power. 
Although then others court you, if ye know 
What's done on earth, we shall not fare the worse 

Who do not so : 
Since we are ever ready to disburse, 
If any one our Maker's hand can show." 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 59 

tradition on an entire level with Scripture; but assuredly 
by introducing the rule of making it a test and criterion 
for the interpretation of Scripture, they are practically 
assigning to it an equality, if not a supremacy, real in 
substance, however it may be denied in words. 

Let me not, however, be understood as wishing to 
depreciate the value of tradition when legitimately em- 
ployed. It must necessarily be gratifying and encour- 
aging to every sincere Christian student to find, as he 
generally will find, the obvious purport of the revealed 
Scriptures, illustrated by the professed belief and prac- 
tice of the orthodox primitive Church. It removes 
every lingering doubt and misgiving on our part, to 
find that the immediate followers of the Apostles thought 
and read precisely as we think and read : and it is cer- 
tainly an argument the more in favour of that form of 
Church government which the Apostles adopted, and 
which our own country still receives, that we find that 
for the first fifteen centuries of the Christian sera, it 
was never departed from by any large denomination of 
believers. There is again something singularly pleas- 
ing to the imagination, and profitable to our better 
feelings, in the idea that in our forms of worship, in 
the expression of our prayers and praises, we are not 
only uttering the same sentiments, but almost the self- 
same form of words with which the primitive saints and 
martyrs approached their Maker and their Redeemer. 
Still, however, w T e are not to confound what is merely 
useful and praiseworthy, with what, as articles of belief, 
are necessary for salvation. Tradition may supply the 
former, but it can do nothing whatever towards furnish- 
ing us with the latter. It is on the rigorous observance 
of this distinction, I repeat, that the soundness and 
purity of our faith as Christians must finally depend. 
The moment that we find tradition set up as an integral 



60 NOT TRADITION, 

portion of revelation, (and such we are now, even by 
members of our own Church, occasionally told that it 
is,*) from that moment it becomes our duty to point 
out the weakness of its claims to so high a distinction. 
But say the advocates of tradition, it is far from our 
wish to attach an infallible authority to all those oral 
transmissions of doctrine or of usage indiscriminately, 
which have descended to us from the primitive times. 
Our theory is far more cautious and discriminating 
than the one above supposed. The canon of Vincentius 
of Lerins, "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus" 
constitutes our rule. Those traditions only which have 
been received in all ages of the Church, in all parts of 
Christendom, and by the great mass of Christians, we 
acknowledge as binding upon the conscience, and as 
really constituting a standard of faith. Be it so. Un- 
doubtedly this is an important limitation. But then, 
unfortunately, this is a limitation so extensive, that, if 
acted upon, it would make the exception entirely exclude 
the rule. For, after all, what are the doctrines connected 
in any way with tradition which can in strictness be 
said to have been thus adopted, " semper, ubique, et ab 
omnibus?" Can any one article of a Christian man's 
belief, not expressly enunciated in Scripture, be said to 
come under this category? We hear the institution of 
the celebration of our Lord's day, and the non-obser- 
vance of the Jewish sabbath quoted as a case in point. 
I deny that it is so. We have authority in Scripture 
for the celebration of the Lord's day, and we read 
enough in Scripture to justify our non-observance of 
the Jewish sabbath. But so far is tradition from being 

* " He was one of those who, feeling strongly the inadequacy of their own intel- 
lects to guide them to religious truth, are prepared to throw themselves unre- 
servedly on revelation, whether found in Scripture or Antiquity.''' 1 — British Critic 
for January, 1838. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 61 

uniform on this question, that we know that for a con- 
siderable period after our Lord's ascension a large body 
of Christians continued to celebrate both days ; and that 
it was only by slow degrees that the former entirely 
superseded the latter. Again, we are told that it is to 
tradition that we must look for our warrant for the 
adoption of the rite of infant baptism. This instance 
is, however, as defective as the former. Here, as Bishop 
Taylor observes, we have again the sanction of Scrip- 
ture in the analogous case of infant circumcision, whilst 
that of tradition fails us, — the practice of infant baptism 
having been, as is well known, by no means universal 
in the early Church. Even the great fundamental 
doctrine of the blessed Trinity, in its orthodox accepta- 
tion, clearly as it is conveyed by Scripture to those who 
will submit to accept it according to the obvious meaning 
of the language, can scarcely be asserted to have the 
sanction of tradition limited by the rule just now quoted, 
when we recollect how very large a portion of mankind 
at one time adhered to the Arian heresy. But the fact 
is, that plausible as the canon of Vincentius may appear, 
it is one which practically is never very rigorously 
enforced by the champions of tradition. It will gene- 
rally be found to relax itself when required, so as to 
include almost every favourite speculation of the parties 
quoting it. Who, for instance, would ever have sup- 
posed that the Church of Rome, with its masses — its 
image worship — its purgatory and its indulgences — 
would gravely appeal to this very test by which to try 
the validity of its own traditions? And yet, so it is. 
Nothing can be more modest or cautious than the rule 
which it prescribes to. itself. Take, for example, the 
words of the Romanist Moreri, as given in his General 
Dictionary, under the head " Tradition." They are as 
follows:— "Parmi les Chretiens on distingue deux 



62 NOT TRADITION, 

mo'iens de eonnoitre la parole de Dieu, et la doctrine 
de Jesus Christ; qui sont l'Ecriture Sainte, et la tradi- 
tion. Les Catholiques les croient tous deux de meme 
autorite, et les heretiques n'oseroient pas nier que la 
tradition ne soit d'une grande autorite; mais il faut com- 
prendre sous le nom de tradition les ecrits des peres, 
qui rendent temoignage de la doctrine, qu'ils ont recue 
de leurs ancetres, et enseignee a ceux qui leur ont suc- 
cede, comme la doctrine de FEglise Catliolique. Et a fin 
que les traditions soient la regie de la Foi, ilfaut qu'elles 
aient les conditions marquees par Vincent de Lerins dans 
son memoir e, qui sont 'Vantiquite, V universalis, et Vuni- 
formite, 7 qu'il paroisse que c'est une doctrine enseignee 
dans toute FEglise, en tout terns, et par tous les docteurs 
Catholiques. Les traditions qui n'ont pas ces caracteres 
sont sujettes a Vefreur et il ne faut pas se fier a des tra- 
ditions populaires, denuees de preuves et de temoinsP 
Such is the security afforded against the possible adul- 
teration of the Christian doctrine by the adoption of 
this celebrated canon ! Can we for a moment question 
the authenticity and soundness of the Romish traditions, 
after their having been tested by so safe a criterion? 

But the final, and, as it is imagined, the most cogent 
argument is yet to come. It is, we are told, to nothing 
more or less than the tradition of the early Church, 
that we owe our belief in the authenticity of the canoni- 
cal Scriptures themselves. In other words^ that the 
New Testament itself is but primitive tradition in an- 
other form. Now this often quoted argument, I own, 
appears to me nothing more than a piece of captious 
sophistry. True it is, that the New Testament, like 
every other permanent gift of Providence, has descend- 
ed through successive generations to our time ; but then, 
it has descended as an acknowledged historical fact, be- 
lieved in by the early Fathers of the Church, but not, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 63 

therefore, deriving its authority from them. In fact, it 
would be almost as accurate an expression to call the 
pyramids of Egypt a tradition, as to designate the apos- 
tolical writings as such. The primitive Christians trans- 
mitted them to us because they believed them to be the 
infallible word of God ; but the belief of that early age 
is not the only proof, much less is it the cause of their 
infallibility. If it were, then any written composition, 
which the collective opinions of the primitive Church 
might have chosen to sanction, would be a part of divine 
revelation. But this conclusion is evidently unsound. 
Not all the united voices of antiquity, for instance, could 
have proved the epistle of Clemens to be the word of 
God, for it contains the assertion of a physical fact 
which is obviously false. The same may be said of all 
the uninspired writings of the primitive Fathers. They 
are, no doubt, the works of good and pious men; but 
not all the testimony of all ages combining could show 
them to be free from error, and therefore worthy of 
being received as canonical and inspired writings. " In- 
valuit apud plerosque perniciosissimus error, Scripturse 
tantum inesse momenti quantum illi Ecclesise suffragiis 
conceditur; ac si vero seterna inviolabilisque Dei Veritas 
hominum arbitrio niter etur : sic enim, magno cum ludi- 
brio Spiritus Sancti, quserunt. Ecquis nobis fidem 
faciat, hsec a Deo prodiisse? Ecquis salva et intacta ad 
nostram usque setatem pervenisse, certiores reddat? 
Ecquis persuadeat librum hunc reverenter accipiendum, 
alteram numero expungendum, nisi certain istorum om- 
nium regulam Ecclesia prsescriberet ? Pendet igitur, 
inquiunt, ab Ecclesise determinatione et quse Scrip turae 
reverentia debeatur, et qui libri in ejus catalogo censen- 
di sint. Ita sacrilegi homines, dum sub Ecclesise prse- 
textu volunt effraenatam tyrannidem invehere, nihili cu- 
rant quibus se et alios absurditatibus illaqueent, modo 



64 NOT TRADITION, 

hoc unum extorqueant apud simplices, Ecclesiam nihil 
non posse"* — Calvini Institut. lib. i. cap. 7. 

* Let me here be permitted to extract from a recent number of the British Critic, 
(that for October, 1838,) the words of a writer evidently adopting the views of that 
party in our Church, whose peculiar sentiments have given occasion to the remarks 
contained in these pages. I quote them, as affording a fair specimen of the plausi- 
ble, but, as it appears to me, unsatisfactory and superficial arguments by which the 
doctrines in question have been recommended to young minds." " It is very true," 
says the reviewer, " that we are to be able to give a reason for the faith that is in 
us; but this is no command to give a wrong reason; and it is a wrong reason, that 
is, an injudicious, an unscriptural, a faithless and wilful reason, however true and 
logically conclusive in itself, when we believe Christianity, not because the Church 
has told us, in recognition of her authority, and in obedience to her commands, as 
our lawful and natural superior, but because its doctrines are conformable to our 
individual reason, its laws agreeable to our own personal moral feeling — the history 
of the Bible reconcilable with the history of Herodotus or Livy — its mysteries, 
improved repetitions of the theories of Plato and Aristotle — its physical narrations 
borne out by appearances in stones and planets — its whole scheme precisely what 

we should expect from our knowledge and notions of the Deity A man 

cannot rest without a resting place distinct from himself, nor feel confidence except 
in a power other and higher than his own. But when he appeals to the truth, and 
reasonableness, and morality, and consistency of Christianity, to any thing but tes- 
timony, over which he exercises no control whatever, he is after all only appealing 
to himself; to what seems true, and reasonable, and consistent to himself. .... 
Against this there is but one security — testimony, and authority: and if the Church 
will consent once more to take its stand here, nothing can shake it." Now, whilst 
I conceive that every well-disposed Bible student will readily make common cause 
with the anonymous writer whose words are here quoted, against every attempt to 
reduce the sublime doctrines of revelation to the inadequate standard of mere human 
reason, still I can by no means think that he ought therefore so far to reject all the 
testimony of that intellect, and of those moral feelings, which the Almighty has 
decreed to be integral portions of his nature, as to throw himself implicitly into the 
opposite, and, as it seems to me, the not less unscriptural extreme. "Why, one is 
naturally induced to inquire, are we to east away as unsound or dangerous, that 
satisfied conviction of our moral and rational faculties, resulting from an impartial 
examination of the internal and external evidence of revelation, when through its 
means we have arrived at the conclusion, that the Bible really and indeed speaks 
as never mortal man spake, and is beyond a doubt the inspired word of God? 
What is the gain, I cannot but ask, in a spiritual and religious point of view, in 
thus closing our intellectual eyesight, and throwing ourselves blindly upon mere 
authority? "What is the authority, one naturally feels disposed to inquire, to which 
the Reviewer would direct us? Is it that of the Christians of the primitive ages ? 
These, however, were mere human beings like ourselves; and whence, then, we 
again ask, did those very persons derive their conviction ? Was it from argument 
which was found satisfactory to their own understanding? If so, why then should 
we be refused the privilege of employing the same instrument? Was it from arbi- 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 65 

But it is necessary to bring these remarks to a con- 
clusion. Let me then by way of protest against a set 
of opinions zealously propagated at the present moment, 
but most dangerous, as I conceive, to the cause of Pro- 
testantism, recapitulate in a few words what are at least 
my own views upon this important and much agitated 
question. I am of opinion then, that in mercy and con- 
descension to mankind, God has been pleased to confer 
upon us a full and perfect written revelation of his will, 
as an infallible guide to salvation. I conceive that that 
revelation, as finally consummated in the Christian 
scheme, is the development of a system of spiritual 
holiness which, if accepted with an humble and submis- 
sive mind, will lead us to the most exalted notions of 
the Divine Being, and to practical habits of the most 
consummate purity. I believe that the presumed diffi- 
culties in the interpretation of Scripture, so much dwelt 
upon by the advocates of tradition, are occasioned much 
more by the vain curiosity, the besetting prejudices, and 
the unsubdued passions of mankind, than by any real 
want of clearness in the written record. Taken, accor- 
ding to the plain and obvious interpretation of its lan- 
guage, and commented upon solely by the analogy of 
Scripture with Scripture, the prophecies of the Old 
Testament being carefully compared with their fulfil- 
ment in the New, I conceive that the Bible must neces- 



trary external dictation ? Yet even the satisfied assent to dictation presupposes the 
exercise of the reasoning powers. If we are told that they believed the Scripture, 
because testimony was borne to it by inspired men, then we necessarily ask, 
" where is the proof of their inspiration ?" We cannot, consistently with this 
course of argument, reply, that such proof is to be found in the Scripture itself, for 
that would be mere reasoning in a circle, proving Scripture by the inspiration of 
its first teachers, and the inspiration of the first teachers of Christianity by Scrip- 
ture. And yet such are the difficulties which beset us, when, following the recom- 
mendation of the Reviewer, we would discard as irrelevant the evidences of our 
faith, and cast ourselves exclusively upon authority, 

I 



66 

sarily give out to every earnest inquirer after truth, the 
orthodox doctrines of the Trinity in unity,* of justifica- 
tion and redemption through humble faith in the expia- 
tory merits of Christ, and of sanctification, branching 
out into all the several duties towards God and man, 
through the aid of the Holy Spirit. If scriptural stu- 
dents fail of arriving at these sublime truths, it is, I 
believe, because they will not condescend to take Scrip- 
ture as they find it; but having previously made up 
their minds that certain principles must be true, that 
others, however strongly attested, must be false, they 
reject large portions of the sacred writings as spurious, 
and put the most forced and improbable construction 
upon others, rather than admit that God's ways are not 
as their ways, nor His thoughts as their thoughts. For 
the correction of errors of this description, the proper 
remedy will, I imagine, be found, not in calling in the 
equivocal and uncertain aid of tradition, and in substitu- 
ting a bending for an unbending standard. If they 



* There can scarcely be a stronger admission on the part of the Unitarians, that 
the New Testament, if taken in its natural context, and according- to the received 
canon, does convey the Trinitarian doctrine, than the shifts which, contrary to all 
the rules of sound criticism, they are obliged to have recourse to, in order to avoid 
coming to that conclusion. Thus, in what they have termed their "Improved ver- 
sion of the New Testament," they are reduced to the denial of the authenticity of 
the first two chapters of Matthew's, and of the first two chapters of Luke's Gospel, 
whilst of the accuracy of their translation from the original Greek, the following 
extracts may serve as specimens: — " The word was in the beginning, and the word 
was with God, and the word was a God (thus they add in a note, Moses is declared 
to be a God to Pharaoh). All things were done by him, and without him was not 
any thing done that hath been done." — St. John i. 1-3. " He was in the world, and 
the world was enlightened by him." — lb. v. 10. " And the word was flesh, and 
full of kindness and truth ; he dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory 
as of the only Son, who came from the Father." — lb. v. 16. " God is thy throne for 
ever and ever." — Hebrews i. 8. In these- passages we find the direct construction 
of the original language violated, because, if literally rendered, they would at once 
assert our Saviour's divinity. Would any thing be gained, in dealing with men 
who thus shut their eyes against the written word, by pressing them with argu- 
ments derived from mere tradition ? 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 67 

deny the authority, or tamper with the letter of the 
written word, they will not readily submit to the un- 
written, however dogmatically vouched as genuine. 
The real remedy for this proud spirit of unbelief will 
be best found in inculcating that artless innocence of 
the moral sense which our Redeemer enjoins; in subdu- 
ing the arrogance of a captious understanding, and, in 
making, if possible, the hunger and thirst of the soul 
after righteousness predominate over the wanton curi- 
osity of the intellect. Professing these sentiments, it is 
scarcely necessary for me to repeat, that I do not con- 
ceive that one single particle of revelation, in the strict 
meaning of the term, is conveyed to us by tradition 
only. It appears to me highly improbable, that any 
portion of the necessary articles of belief should have 
been originally allowed to remain extraneous to the 
written word; and it appears to me certain, that, if ever 
such portions were left floating in oral tradition only, 
at all events the record of them is now irredeemably 
lost. 

On the other hand I repeat I am far from wishing to 
undervalue legitimate tradition. It is at all events a 
natural and an amiable feeling in those who believe the 
Holy Scriptures to have been the work of inspired men, 
to wish to approximate as nearly as possible to the times 
in which those men lived ; to imbibe their feelings in 
all their freshness, and to worship God after the self- 
same forms in which they worshipped. Much respect, 
moreover, is due to long-established authority, and more 
still to those sober ordinances, and that decent disci- 
pline, which have been established by the general agree- 
ment of Christians, under spiritual pastors and rulers, 
holding their appointments according to a rule sanc- 
tioned by Scripture itself. A mind duly trained to 
look to the written word for the sole rule of its faith, 



68 NOT TRADITION, 

will ever be ready to conform its practice to institutions 
which it feels to be in full accordance with what is there 
enjoined. " Where two or three are met together in my 
name, there I am in the midst of you," will be a text 
which will often recur to a person thus disciplined, and 
he will feel that in resisting the authorities, whom God 
has set over him, he is rebelling against God, and, much 
as in him lies, quenching his Holy Spirit. 

If, then, in the course of the preceding remarks, I 
have appeared to speak depreciatingly of human tradi- 
tion, let it be remembered that I have done so from a 
deep conviction of the weakness and darkness of the 
human understanding, the moment that the light of re- 
velation is withdrawn from it. Admitting that revela- 
tion ceased with the apostolic age, it appears to me that 
it were an inconsistency to attach more respect to the 
opinions and surmises of the earlier Christians, than 
would naturally be due to any set of good and religious 
men, possessing, indeed, some advantages over ourselves 
for the acquisition of knowledge, but labouring under 
many most serious disadvantages, and liable to be led 
into error, no less by the suggestions of their own, not 
always well-judging, piety, than by other causes. The 
one great failing so natural to us all, which it has been 
my object to deprecate, is that officious and misplaced 
ingenuity, which is ever seeking to find out modes and 
forms of worship which God never sanctioned, attaching 
to them unnecessary importance, and erecting into arti- 
cles of faith usages, which at the best are harmless, and 
not unfrequently are serious deviations from some pri- 
mitive commandment. Where, indeed, this frame of 
mind exists, it is not merely against tradition that a 
caution is necessary. The very fountains of living 
waters themselves become corrupted and tainted by it, 
Scripture, by dint of distorted texts and forced inter- 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 69 

pretations, will lend its aid, no less than the presumed 
oral sanction of antiquity, to the most unscriptural doc- 
trines, where the mind, attached to its early habits, is 
determined at all events to defend and maintain them. 
It matters not to persons thus disposed, by how tortuous 
a construction the end is arrived at. A few detached 
words of holy writ are wrested from the main context. 
The Church, as it is called, affixes to them its own in- 
terpretation. The impugner is at once silenced, and 
the commandments of men are henceforward taught as 
truths from heaven. Thus, from the expression of the 
Psalmist, "Like as we have heard, so have w T e seen" 
the Church of Rome has been known to defend no less 
a monstrous doctrine than that of image worship. " Lord , 
here are two swords/' according to the same authority 
is a text at once confirmatory of the pope's temporal and 
spiritual authority; and the " agite pcenitentiam," of the 
Vulgate, in spite of the assertion of Quintilian, who de- 
clares the expression in correct latinity, to mean nothing 
more or less than "repent"* is carefully rendered " do 
penance" But, if Scripture may be thus forced to 
sanction human abuses, much more easily, of course, 
may so uncertain and unsteady a thing as oral tradition 
(coloured as it ever is by the respective passions of the 
relator and the receiver,) be enlisted into the same ser- 
vice. No members of our own Church may as yet in- 
deed have ever gone the unwarrantable lengths here 
supposed. But still may we not ask, where after all 
are we to stop, if we once overlook the definite line 
which separates the written word of God from the oral 
teaching of men, and attempt to extend to the latter the 
reverence which attaches only to the former? 

* Praeter novitatem, brevitas eliam peti solet. Unde eousque processum est ut 
non paeniturum pro non acturo pcenitentiam . . . idem auctor dixerit. — Instit. Orator, 
lib, 9, cap. 3. 



70 NOT TRADITION, 

I repeat, and would repeat it again and again, a deep 
impression of the immense value of that foremost gift of 
the divine mercy, the inspired Scriptures, with a con- 
viction that He who imparted to us that knowledge has 
made it adequate to the purpose for which it was 
intended; and that He is the best and only Judge what 
degree of mental illumination is good for us, — these 
appear to me to be the principles from which our faith, 
as followers of Christ, can alone derive consistency and 
certainty. We may attempt to go further, and seek to 
improve upon the doctrines thus placed ready made in 
our hands. The wish is a natural one. The anxious 
and devout mind ever thinks that it cannot do too much 
in God's service, and soon begins to prescribe to itself 
tasks and privations which revelation never required. 
So acted the Pharisees with respect to the ritual law of 
Moses. So have acted the monks of the Thebaid and 
the ascetics of the middle ages ; and so act thousands of 
humble and sincere Christians at the present day, who, 
ignorant of the nature and extent of that liberty with 
which Christ has made them free, would open to them- 
selves new and more perfect ways of righteousness. 
The attempt no doubt may be, and is, well intentioned. 
But it is notwithstanding founded on a misconception 
of the inevitable tendencies of the human intellect. 
Scripture and tradition are not concurrent but rival 
principles, and as such cannot safely be associated the 
one with the other. That one which is most congenial 
with our natural prejudices and weaknesses, will always 
be found eventually to triumph, by the exclusion of its 
less carnal adversary. So it has already been in the 
Romanist Churches of the continent of Europe, where 
at this moment tradition flourishes, but Scripture is 
comparatively overlooked. And such will be the result 
also in this country, should the day ever arrive when 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 71 

the modified respect due to antiquity shall be elevated 
into a feeling of conscientious reverence. Is it in fact 
going beyond the truth, if I observe that symptoms of 
the evil which I am now deprecating, have already 
begun to display themselves? Already we hear the 
Bible spoken of, not as the great vehicle of original 
teaching, but as a point of appeal only. The Church 
we are told, by its summaries, its extracts, its exposi- 
tions, must instruct catechetically, and the Scriptures 
must be referred to from time to time, as a guarantee 
for the orthodoxy of the doctrines thus inculcated. 
Against such a mode of instruction indeed as this, there 
can lie no objection, provided the continual resort to 
the inspired volume is enforced as a concurrent object 
of study. But the probability is, that such will not be 
the practice. Revealed truths will be taught as culled 
from the Bible, and not as taught in the Bible. Sepa- 
rated from the original context, detached doctrines will 
be presented to the mind in a more harsh and isolated 
form, than that in which they are contained in the word 
of God, and thus, whilst the facts of revelation will be 
preserved, the harmony, the keeping, and the analogy 
of the several parts of revelation one with the other will 
eventually be lost sight of. Let me explain what I 
mean by a comparison. What judgment would a young 
student in painting be able to form of one of the Car- 
toons of Raphael, were the separate figures presented to 
him one by one, without any reference to their position 
and grouping as integral portions of a large composition ? 
He would be able to judge indeed of the accuracy of 
the individual drawing, but he would form an extremely 
feeble conception of the main intention of the artist. In 
like manner, I conceive that in order really to under- 
stand the teaching of the Bible, we must read it in the 
Bible. We shall then, and then only, be able to per- 



72 

ceive the exact proportion which one part of revelation 
bears to another, and to judge of its relative importance : 
to know in short what are the great, prominent and 
palmary truths there revealed; what are those simply 
ancillary, and secondary, not indeed in authority, but 
solely in extent and degree. Human teaching, even 
when derived from Scripture itself, where it does not 
convey the whole truth, must ever be received with a 
certain degree of suspicion. Men much too consci- 
entious to alter what they find written, will still be too 
often tempted to set off to advantage their favourite 
doctrines, by giving them in their oral teaching a pro- 
minence which they do not possess in the original 
record. And thus human ingenuity and learning step 
in to colour and distort, and perplex the best gift of God. 
The result accordingly is, that theology as a science 
becomes at length too ponderous for the average under- 
standing of mankind, and the humble, the timid, and 
the simple-minded are left dependent upon the glosses 
and expositions of schoolmen, instead of deriving their 
knowledge of their God and their Redeemer from the 
original fountain head. Such is the process by which 
grows up, insensibly and by degrees, the fatal, the 
unscriptural doctrine of reserve in spiritual teaching. 
The simple mind is declared to be unequal to the ap- 
prehension of the plainest revealed truth, until that 
truth be tested and examined by the labours of the 
learned. And thus man steps in, not indeed with the 
intention of interrupting or cutting off the descending 
streams of divine knowledge, but still determined at all 
events that they shall pass through earthen conduits, of 
which he is to reserve to himself the right of regulating 
and adjusting the supply. Reserve in scriptural teach- 
ing! How strangely does this expression sound in 
Protestant ears ! It was our blessed Redeemer's boast 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 73 

respecting his doctrine, that "to the poor the gospel 
was preached;" it was that of his great Apostle Paul, 
that, rejecting all human philosophy and human wis- 
dom, he taught one thing only, " Christ crucified." 
This momentous truth he himself urged, and exhorted 
his followers to urge, "in season and out of season;" 
and yet in our own day we hoar of learned men and 
good men holding back, as an esoteric doctrine, this 
central and fundamental position, as a thing not to be 
lightly laid bare to the gaze of the multitude ! Of such 
an attempt we may, I trust, pronounce with confidence, 
that it cannot eventually succeed. The auxiliaries of 
learning, and the force of personal respectability may 
give it a momentary popularity; and an increase in 
practical holiness, and a more complete development of 
the religious principle may, by oversanguine minds, be 
anticipated as its probable result. But it requires 
nothing more than the knowledge afforded by past 
experience, to pronounce with confidence that it will 
disappoint all such expectation. Not having its foun- 
dation in revelation, and not being suited to the circum- 
stances of human nature, its effect, if carried into opera- 
tion, will no doubt be, in another generation, the revival 
of the cold superstitions of former ages, and the substi- 
tution of the abject slavery of external ordinances for 
the heartfelt devotion of the spiritual servant of Christ. 
By way of conclusion, let me now subjoin a few ob- 
servations upon some of those leading points of Chris- 
tian doctrine which have been most affected by being 
brought into contact with ecclesiastical traditions. 

OF BAPTISM. 

The rite of baptism bears every appearance of being 
exactly analogous with that of circumcision under the 
Jewish ritual, as constituting the initiative introduction 



74 

into the divine covenant to which it is annexed. That 
it is universally required of all persons admitted into 
the Christian church, precisely as circumcision was of 
all members of the Jewish nation claiming the Levitical 
privileges, is evident from the command of our Saviour 
to baptize donations, and from the whole tenor of his 
conversation with Nicodemus on the subject. It is 
moreover self-evident that no command, thus universal 
in its application, would be lightly given by the great 
Founder of our faith. We are therefore bound to be- 
lieve that obedience on our part, accompanied, with a 
due submission of the will to so positive an injunction, 
must necessarily be accompanied with some appropriate 
divine blessing, which we could not receive on any 
other terms. Granting then, as we necessarily must, 
the universal obligation of submitting to this ordinance, 
and the reality of the spiritual benefit annexed to its 
due performance, it remains, in the first place, to be 
considered how far Christians are justified in deviating 
from what would seem to have been the primitive usage, 
by administering it, as is now almost universally prac- 
tised, to new-born infants. It will not, I think, be diffi- 
cult to show that in this practice we are borne out by 
the spirit, if not the letter, of holy Scripture. 

Upon the first preaching of the Gospel, it was natural 
that the larger portion of the persons coming to partake 
of this rite should have been adults ; and we are not 
therefore to be surprised that the New Testament al- 
ludes only to such cases, and of course considers that 
service of the heart which consists in repentance for 
past sins, and acceptance through faith of the terms 
proffered by the Gospel, as generally coincident with it 
in point of time. But it by no means follows, that what 
circumstances made necessary at that particular period, 
should constitute a rule strictly binding in all future 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 75 

ages. As Bishop Taylor observes, the analogy Of the 
case of circumcision, which shows that God, under the 
Mosaic laws accepted during the nonage of the infant, 
the faith of the parents who brought him to be thus 
initiated, is quite a sufficient warrant for Christians un- 
der the Gospel covenant, in adopting the same system 
with respect to baptism. We may therefore confidently 
argue, in opposition to those who would rest the usage 
of infant baptism upon tradition only, that we have in 
Scripture as direct a sanction as a strong analogy can 
afford for our present practice. And we shall be more 
confirmed in this view of the question when we consider 
it practically in its results. 

Now the expediency of infant baptism (and where an 
usage appears to be not inconsistent with Scripture, its 
salutary mode of working must always be considered an 
additional argument in its favour), may be fairly con- 
sidered as established, by the moral benefits upon the 
character which it is found experimentally to produce. 
A child cannot too soon be made to know that he is 
"not his own," that "he is bought with a price." If 
well disposed, he will from the moment that he begins 
to comprehend the duties of religion, feel a strong addi- 
tional inducement to a course of early piety, from the 
consciousness that his regeneration (that is to say, his 
abjuration of his natural character, and his assumption 
of that of a servant of Christ) is not a thing which is to 
take place at some future indefinite period; but that it 
is already done. That he is actually assigned over to 
his Redeemer's service; that the old man is already 
buried in him ; and that he is already spiritually risen 
again with Christ to newness and holiness of life. 

Where then the rite of baptism is duly followed up, 
as the faculties of the mind develop, by a course of piety 
and obedience, we cannot doubt that our Lord's com- 



76 NOT TRADITION, 

mand on this subject has been duly and fully obeyed, 
according to the entire spirit of his intention. 

It appears therefore as certain as any other scriptural 
truth, that the person thus admitted into the Christian 
covenant, and running his course suitably in it, is 
accordingly in a state of entire reconciliation with God, 
and has a claim to all the benefits of the Gospel dispen- 
sation. Nor can we doubt that the blessing of the 
Almighty is upon him, and that the assisting grace of 
the Holy Spirit will always be ready to aid his endea- 
vours in the pursuit of holiness. Thus far probably all 
parties within our Church are agreed in their opinions 
on this subject. But subsequent to this view of the 
case occurs another important but more difficult ques- 
tion ; namely, " What is the exact nature of the spiritual 
gift conferred at baptism, and how far is it final in itself;" 
that is to say, how far annexed exclusively to this one 
ceremony. If the grace which it confers be quenched 
by the growth of subsequent bad habits, "can it be 
renewed by repentance; or, once lost, is it extinguished 
for ever?" This is a fearful question; and respecting 
it, as is well known, the speculations of different mem- 
bers of our Church are essentially different. The 
extreme party on the one side consider baptism as one 
single opportunity offered, in the life of each individual, 
of reconciliation with God; but if once forfeited by 
subsequent sin and the violation of the conditions of 
the Christian covenant, as not reparable at any future 
period by any process acknowledged by revelation. In 
other words, this doctrine would assert that all grievous 
sin after baptism is, so far as we have reason to believe, 
irremissible: a doctrine so harsh, so practically damna- 
tory of nearly the whole human race, and so inconsistent 
with the declared merciful character of the Gospel 
system, as compared even with the Levitical, that we 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 77 

want no further proof of its unsoundness. The extreme 
opinion on the other side, and which perhaps again can 
scarcely find its warrant in Scripture, is, that baptism 
is indeed a rite obligatory upon all Christians, but still 
merely a form of initiation, necessary, because enjoined 
by our Saviour, but conveying a divine blessing along 
with it, not in its own essence, but solely as it chances 
to be followed up by subsequent holiness of life. We 
want no further argument against the soundness of this 
latter view, than that, according to it, a child in that 
intermediate state between baptism and the development 
of its own moral sense, would appear to have received 
no benefit whatever from the ceremony which it has 
undergone, save that of its formal admission into the 
Christian community. 

With regard to the first mentioned and the harsher 
of these two opposite views, I would now observe, that 
if we admit the entire analogy between the rite of 
circumcision and that of baptism, the doctrine of the 
irremissibility of sin after baptism falls at once to the 
ground. If sins were remissible to the Jews after 
circumcision, then it would follow that they are equally 
remissible to the Christian after baptism. We know 
however that the whole machinery of expiatory rites 
and sacrifices under the Levitical law was enacted for 
the benefit of circumcised adults, who having fallen 
into sin, were again and again to be rendered clean in 
the sight of God by the renewal of their obedience, in 
the manner and by the ceremonies which the ritual of 
Moses prescribed. But the ritual expiations of the Jews 
were confessedly the type of their great Antitype, the 
one sufficient sacrifice of Christ. Now it can never for 
a moment be supposed that the mere adumbration, the 
type, should have a power of reconciling fallen man 
with God, and that the real substance, the antitype, 



78 NOT TRADITION, 

should be inefficient for the same purpose; — that the 
blood of bulls and of goats should be more effectual than 
that of Christ; — that under the comparatively harsh 
Levitical system there should be the means of spiritual 
restoration, after a lapse from grace, held out to the last 
moment of man's earthly existence, whilst all the hopes 
of the Christian, under the merciful Gospel dispensation, 
should be crushed irrecoverably, under circumstances 
precisely similar. "We may add, in confirmation of this 
view of the question, that although Scripture is silent 
with respect to the baptism of the Apostles, still we 
must necessarily infer that it took place during the 
period of our Lord's ministry on earth. But if so, then 
they all committed the deadly sin of denying him sub- 
sequently to their respective baptisms, and yet, that that 
sin was forgiven them is perfectly certain from the 
communications held with them by our Saviour in the 
interval between his resurrection and ascension. The 
case of the incestuous person mentioned in both of St. 
Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians affords another argu- 
ment precisely to the same effect. 

But now, in the next place, occurs the question, 
"What is the exact nature of that spiritual gift which 
we believe to be conferred in baptism?" This query 
will be differently answered according to men's different 
temperaments. That there is, however, some important 
blessing attendant upon the due reception of this rite, 
cannot for a moment be doubted. The solemnity with 
which our Lord enjoins its performance is quite decisive 
upon that point. And yet, on the other hand, as if for 
the purpose of checking any exaggerated theories on 
this subject, Scripture alludes to other spiritual gifts, 
no doubt of great value to the recipient, but still entirely 
unconnected with the baptismal ceremony. 

It seems, indeed, as if almost intended on purpose to 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 79 

meet the assertion that baptism is the one great, and 
almost only occasion, in which we may look to obtain- 
ing the graces of the Holy Spirit; that in one remarkable 
passage of the Acts of the Apostles we find the gift of 
the Holy Ghost preceding the conferring of baptism; in 
another, as not accompanying that rite, but as subsequent 
to it : in both cases, therefore, obviously not dependent 
upon it. Thus, in the case of the spiritual gift being 
withheld till after the reception of baptism, we read, 
"who, when they were come down, prayed for them, 
that they might receive the Holy Ghost (for as yet he 
was fallen upon none of them ; only they were baptized 
by the name of the Lord Jesus). Then laid they their 
hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost." 
(Acts viii. 15-17). And again, in the instance where 
it preceded baptism, we find the following passage. 
"Then answered Peter, Can any man forbid water, that 
these should not be baptized, which have received the 
Holy Ghost as well as we?" (Acts x. 46, 47.) The 
conclusion, then, which we come to, if we look to Scrip- 
ture alone for our information, is, that baptism in the 
first place is the seal of our regeneration, and of our 
admission to the Christian covenant. 2dly. That as 
such, it gives us a claim to all the conditions of that 
covenant, so long as we continue in our obedience. 
That, as being of divine institution, it is necessarily 
accompanied by some divine blessing not otherwise 
attainable ; and that that blessing is not eventually for- 
feited in consequence of subsequent transgression, pro- 
vided the offender turns from his sin in true contrition 
of heart, and embraces through faith that inexhaustible 
means of reconciliation still afforded him through the 
merits and sacrifice of Christ. All speculations further 
than this, — all attempts to define the exact degree of 
benefit obtained, and the precise nature of the spiritual 



80 NOT TRADITION, 

change produced, together with all questions branching 
out of the same subject, such as the possibility of unbap- 
tized adults, as in the case of the repentant thief, being 
admitted to salvation, as lying beyond the verge of 
revelation, appear to me to be at the best inexpedient, 
and not unfrequently mischievous, from the often con- 
tradictory theories, and the want of mutual charity 
which they produce. 

OF THE HOLY EUCHARIST. 

The institution of the Lord's Supper was the adapta- 
tion of one of the most remarkable ceremonies of the 
Mosaic law, established in commemoration of the release 
of the Jews from Egyptian captivity, to the still more 
solemn commemorative celebration of the rescue of the 
whole human race, through the one great Christian 
sacrifice, from the bondage of sin and death. It was in 
its primitive form, under the Levitical institutions, a 
kind of dramatic representation of the hurried departure 
of the Israelites from the land of their captivity, eating 
their hasty meal with their travelling staves in their 
hands, their shoes on their feet, and with their loins 
girded : the food ordained being the paschal lamb, with 
its bones unbroken, and its accompaniments bitter herbs 
and unleavened bread. This ceremony, with the addi- 
tion of some minor formalities, has been solemnly per- 
formed by the Jewish nation during the season of the 
vernal equinox, from the date of their departure from 
Egypt down to the present time. In precisely this 
form, so far as it can be gathered by comparing the nar- 
rative of the Evangelists with what we read of the 
rabbinical ceremonies, it was celebrated by our Saviour 
on the evening preceding his crucifixion, with such ad- 
ditions only as were necessary for its adaptation to the 
purposes of the new gospel covenant. A Jewish con- 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 81 

vert in this country, Mr. Ridley H. Herschell, in a small 
publication during the last year, has given us a brief 
sketch of the present state of the Jews; and, amongst 
other things, has particularized the forms still observed 
by his countrymen during the supper of the passover. 
The following extract from his narrative is worth attend- 
ing to, as it serves to throw considerable light upon the 1 
account given by the Evangelists. " The supper being 
ended, two large cups are filled with wine. One of these 
is taken by the master of the house, and a blessing pro^ 
nounced. This blessing refers very distinctly to the 
time of the Messiah's reign. ' O most Merciful ! make 
us to inherit the day when all shall be sabbath, and we 
shall rest in life for ever. O most Merciful ! cause us 
to be inheritors of the day when all shall be good. O 
most Merciful ! make us worthy to see the days of the 
Messiah and life in the world to come. May He who 
exalteth the salvation of his king, and showeth mercy 
to his anointed, to David and his seed for evermore; 
who causes peace to exist in the heavens, cause his 
peace to be upon us, and upon all Israel.— Amen.' 
This is in strict harmony with the prayer of our Lord : 
1 Thy kingdom come: thy will be done in earth as it is 
in heaven.' After this blessing, the head of the family 
gives the cup to all those sitting around. He then 
brings forth the ' hidden cake,'* and distributes a piece 
to each. The second cup of wine, called Elijah's cup, 
is then placed before him, the door is opened, and a 
solemn pause of expectation ensues. * * * The 
passover has been celebrated by the Jews, without in- 
termission, since the Babylonish captivity; and as we 
are not a people given to adopt modern innovations of 



* The cuke described in a preceding paragraph, as having been put away during 
the celebration of the Supper. 

L 



82 NOT TRADITION, 

any sort, it is probable the mode has never been changed 
in any other way than by the addition or substitution of 
different prayers, suited to the state of dispersion, which 
are to be met with in all the various services, as well as 
allusions to the sayings of certain eminent men, the 
date of w T hich is, of course, not difficult to ascertain. 
It is, therefore, most probable, that our Lord and his 
disciples, in all the ceremonial part, commemorated it 
in the same manner as we now do. The custom of 
dipping the bitter herbs seems to accord with Christ's 
words, ' He that dippeth with me in the dish.' < He to 
whom I shall give a sop when I have dipped it.' In 
reading the narratives of the four Evangelists, we must 
remember they were written by Jews, and that those 
for w T hom they were first written w T ere either Jews or 
the disciples of Jews. None of them, therefore, enter 
into any detailed account of the services of that evening, 
but simply allude to them as matters well known. We 
are not, therefore, to be surprised that the two cups are 
not mentioned in all the narratives ; but to regard the 
narrative of them by St. Luke as sufficient evidence 
that they were used. In chap. xxii. 17, it is said, ' He 
took the cup and gave thanks, and said, Take this, and 
divide it among yourselves;' and in v. 20, < Likewise 
also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the New 
Testament in my blood.' The breaking of the bread 
being mentioned in connexion with this cup, gives 
every reason to suppose that it was the hidden cake 
which our Lord used for this purpose." &c. I have 
dwelt the longer on these observations respecting the 
primitive institution of the eucharist, for the following 
reason. We hear much among the writers of our own 
Church, to whom I have already alluded, of the eucha- 
ristic sacrifice; and though I by no means suppose that 
by this expression the same precise idea is intended to 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 83 

be conveyed with that of the Romanists when speaking 
of the sacrifice of the mass, yet we cannot doubt but 
that the former view of the question is at least an ap- 
proximation to the doctrine implied by the latter. In 
short, it is now asserted by members of our own Church, 
as it has been in former times by the advocates of tradi- 
tion, that the eucharistic rite is not merely a commemo- 
rative act of gratitude for the blessed effects of our 
Saviour's passion, accompanied by a specific divine 
blessing on this our bounden duty and service, but that 
it is also a formal offer ins for sin of the consecrated 
elements; an expiatory sacrifice, resembling in its cha- 
racter and in its final object the oblations under the Levi- 
tical covenant. Such I presume at least is the idea 
intended to be conveyed by the word " sacrifice" as used 
on this subject by the writers to whom I allude. It is 
far from my intention to overstate, much less to misre- 
present their meaning. Now, in reply to this theory, if 
correctly stated by me, I would observe, that the expia- 
tory sacrifices of the Jews were not the type of the eucha- 
ristic ceremonial, but of the actual sacrifice of himself 
once, and only once, offered by our blessed Saviour upon 
the cross. The type, or rather the original ordinance 
from which the eucharistic supper was derived, was, on 
the contrary, as has been just now shown, only a com- 
memorative act of gratitude for a signal mercy received, 
in no one single respect bearing the characteristics of a 
sacrificial rite in the usual acceptation of that term.* 
The inference then of course is obvious, — namely, that 
if the original type was not a sacrifice, (taking that word 
in its technical and Levitical sense) no more was its 

. * It is true that in Exodus xii. 27, we find this ceremony designated by Moses 
as the " sacrifice of the Lord's Passover," but the whole context of the narrative 
shows that no analogy is intended to be implied between this rite and the sacrificial 
institutions of the Levitical law. 



84 

subsequent antitype. Accordingly, we find that neither 
in the narrative of the Evangelists respecting the first 
institution of the Eucharist, nor in the passages in the 
Acts, where this ceremony is spoken of, under the ex- 
pression of " meeting together for the breaking of bread ;" 
nor in the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, where the sub- 
ject is treated in some detail, is there the slightest allu- 
sion to any sacrificial notion as connected with this 
ceremony. That it was solemnly enjoined to the whole 
Christian community by our Lord at that awful moment 
which preceded his crucifixion; that it is, of all the 
religious institutions which the heart of man can con- 
ceive, the most touching, as reminding us of our own 
natural helplessness, and of the vast mercies which we 
have received through the instrumentality of the divine 
love ; and that by taking our part in this necessary act 
of obedience, we do, in some degree, approximate to our 
Saviour, and identify ourselves with him, so far as our 
nature will permit, both in body and soul : all these, I 
conceive, are almost self-evident truths. But when we 
go beyond this point, and teach that the Eucharist is a 
continually renewed sacrifice for reconciliation with God, 
and for the expiation of sin, then, I think, we are not 
only deviating from the original institution, and setting 
up our own fancies in the place of God's ordinances, 
but we are directly incurring the censure which the 
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews throws upon the 
expiatory offerings of the Jews : that is to say, by assert- 
ing that the one great sacrifice for sin of Christ's body 
requires a constant renewal, so far from enhancing, we 
are in fact derogating from the value of that mysterious 
offering, after the payment of which, the Scripture as- 
sures us, that his work accomplished, and our salvation 
obtained, our gracious Redeemer sate down for ever at 
the right hand of God, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 85 

It is curious to observe in the works of the early- 
Christian writers, by what minute deviations, in search 
of imaginary improvement, the Eucharistic ordinance 
became gradually bent from its original character, until 
it finally settled in the Romish Church in that singu- 
larly unscriptural ceremony, the sacrifice of the mass. 
That innovations so slight and apparently so innocent, 
as those of the more primitive times, should have ulti- 
mately led to such a termination, affords us a strong 
warning of the danger of deviating in the slightest 
degree from what we find written, and of the necessity 
of our rigorously scrutinizing even our most pious ima- 
ginations the moment that we begin to suspect that we 
cannot produce for them the sanction of express reve- 
lation. 

The first allusion which we find in the writings of 
the early Fathers to any difference of opinion on the 
subject of the Eucharist, occurs in Ignatius's Epistle to 
the Smyrnaeans, in which he states of the then prevalent 
heretics the Gnostics, that they abstained from principle 
from the use of that rite. This was in fact a necessary 
deduction from the creed of that mistaken sect; inas- 
much as denying the reality of our Lord's bodily nature 
when on earth, they naturally revolted from an institu- 
tion in which the type of that body was the constituent 
element.* It is however in the writings of Justin 
Martyr that we observe the first traces among orthodox 
Christians of that first commencement of innovation 
which, beginning in harmlessness of purpose, eventually 
led men so widely astray from the spirit of the original 
ordinance. " After the celebration of prayers," says he 

* The charge of cannibalism (a*0p«rt£uw aapxiov j3opa), so strangely brought 
against the early Christians by the Pagans, and so indignantly repelled by Justin 
and others, arose evidently from a misapprehension of the scriptural language res. 
pecting the eating the body and blood of Christ, 



86 

in his first Apology, " the appointed minister brings 
forward bread, and a cup of water mingled with wine, 
and taking it up he gives thanks and glory to the Father 
of all things, in the name of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost, praising him that he has vouchsafed to think us 
worthy of these blessings. After which rendering of 
prayers and of thanksgivings, the whole congregation 
reply, Amen. When then the Minister has thus given 
thanks, and the people have thus responded, those whom 
we call ' Deacons' give to each of the persons present a 
portion of the elements for which thanks have thus been 
returned, and afterwards carry away other portions to 
those who have not attended at the service"* Now at 
first sight it would seem harsh to criticize the usage of 
thus communicating to those individuals who might 
have been prevented from attendance by sickness or any 
other justifiable plea, their portion of the consecrated 
elements. And yet, to what a number of successively 
connected results did this seemingly innocent custom 
lead ! The elements thus taken in charge were of course 
to be considered as no longer ordinary bread and wine, 
but as something more especially holy. They were 
therefore to be handled with respect, and to be received 
severally with those feelings of real piety mingled with 
the occasional superadditions of superstitious fancy, 
which would suggest themselves to invalids in their 
sick beds, or to the aged at that time of life when the 
fancy might perhaps have survived the workings of a 
sound judgment. We cannot wonder that, under such 
circumstances, the mere bodily contact of the conse- 
crated elements began soon to be considered as the 
really important part of the ceremony, and the spiritual 
commemoration of the sacrifice of Christ, according to 

* Apologia i. cap. 65. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 87 

the original institution, to be in some degree lost sight 
of. It is, however, in the still later writings of Irenseus 
that we find the first germ* of the subsequently pre- 
valent idea of considering the Eucharistic rite not so 
much as a commemoration of an event, and an act of 
humble obedience, as of a sacrifice. Still the sacrifice 
which this last-mentioned Father supposes is not after 
all that of our Lord's typical body, much less that of the 
supposed transubstantiated body asserted by the Ro- 
manists, but merely what was denominated the unbloody 
sacrifice of bread and wine ; a mere offering of gratitude 
to the Almighty, in return for his many gifts of tem- 
poral mercy to his creatures. " Our Lord," says he, 
"setting us the example of offering to God the first 
fruits of his creatures, not as though He stood in need 
of our gifts, but merely that we might not appear 
ungrateful, took up the creature ' bread,' and returned 
thanks, saying, ' This is my body,' and also, with res- 
pect to the creature ' the cup,' he designated it as his 
blood, and declared it to be the oblation of the new 
covenant; which, the Church receiving as an usage 
from the Apostles throughout the world, still offers to 
God; namely, the first fruits of his gifts, according to 
the new covenant, to Him who gives us our suste- 
nance."! This idea Irenseus supports by the following 



* I cannot think that the word "altar," as it occurs in the epistles of Ignatius, 
has any reference to the idea of sacrifice, as involved in the Eucharistic ceremony. 
The meaning which Ignatius appears to me to intend to convey by this term, would 
perhaps be best rendered by our expression " Church," as designating a body of 
men held together by a common religion. It was a term adopted by him from the 
Levitical and the Pagan usages, and applied, as I conceive, figuratively to the 
Christian forms of worship. It is surely in this sense that we must understand 
him in the following passage from his Epistle to the Trallians : " He that is within 
the altar is pure; but he that is without, that is, that does any thing without the 
Bishop and Presbyters and Deacons, is not pure in his conscience." 

t " Sed et suis discipulis dans consilium primitias Deo offerre ex suis creaturis, 
non quasi indigenti, sed ut ipsi nee infructuosi nee ingrati sint, eum qui ex creature 



88 NOT TRADITION, 

quotation from Malachi: "For from the rising of the 
sun even unto the going down of the same, my name 
shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place 
incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure 
offering." (Mai. i. 11.) 

That this view, however, of the nature of the Eucha- 
ristic rite did not prevail generally in the Church, even 
for some time after the age of Irenseus, is evident from 
what we find asserted positively by Minucius Felix, in 
his well known dialogue entitled " Octavius." In this 
work, which is supposed to have been written about the 
period of the reign of Alexander Severus, we find an 
heathen disputant alleging in depreciation of the Chris- 
tian worship, that it was a religion which possessed no 
altars, no public temples, and no images. " Nullas 
aras habent, templa nulla, nulla nota simulacra." Now, 
the reply of the Christian adversary is not a denial, but 
an admission of this fact, which he justifies from the 
reason of the case. " Putatis nos occultare quod colimus, 
si delubra et aras non habemus ? Quid enim simulacrum 
Deo fingam, cum, si recte existimes, sit Dei homo ipse 
simulacrum? Templum quid ei extruam, cum totus hie 
mundus ejus opere fabricatus eum caper e non possit? 
et, cum homo latius maneam, intra unam sediculam vim 
tantse majestatis includam? Nonne melius in nostra 
dedicandus est mente, in imo consecrandus est pectore? 
Hostias et Victirnas Domino offeram, quas in usum mei 
protulit, ut rejiciam ei suum munus? Ingratum est; 
cum sit litabilis hostia, bonus animus et pura mens et 
sincera conscientia. . . . Hcec nostra sacrijicia, hcec 



panis est, accepit et gratias egit, dicens, ' Hoc est corpus meum.' Et calicem simi- 
liter qui est ex ea creatura quae est secundum nos, suum sanguinem confessus est, 
et novi testamenti novam docuit oblationem. Quam Ecclesia ab Apostolis accipiens 
in universo mundo, offert Deo; ei qui alimenta nobis prsestat, primitias suorum 
munerum in novo testamento." Adversus Hares, lib. iv. cap. 32. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 89 

Dei sacra sunt" Can we want a stronger proof that the 
Eucharistic oblation did not form a part of the belief of 
the person who could write the above passage ? In the 
writings of Cyprian we find, it is true, the Eucharistic 
ceremony continually spoken of under the appellation 
of the sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ: and yet, 
strong as this expression may at first sight appear, it is 
evident, from the incidental explanation of his opinions 
on this subject which meet us from time to time in his 
works, that this form of speech is intended by him only 
in a figurative sense, and not as implying any belief 
whatever in what is called the doctrine of the " real 
presence." That he conceived the ceremony to be in a 
certain sense " sacrificial" must be necessarily admitted, 
but it is at the same time clear that he considered the 
sacrifice thus offered to be the bloodless oblation of bread 
and wine according to the view already attributed to 
Irenseus, and to have no reference whatever to the trans- 
mutation of the original elements into our Lord's actual 
body and blood. Thus in his tract on " Works of Mercy" 
he reproaches a rich but covetous female with the mean- 
ness of partaking of the Eucharistic rite without making 
her own contribution towards the procuring the holy 
elements, and thus, without making any sacrifice herself, 
availing herself of the sacrifice of her poorer brethren. 
" Locuples et dives es, et dominicum celebrare te credis, 
quae ' corban' omnino non respicis ; quse in dominicum 
sine sacrificio venis ; quee partem de sacrificio quod pauper 
obtulit sumis." De opere et eleemosynis, cap. 3. Again, 
in the 75th Epistle of his correspondence we find a 
passage which appears to assert in language the most 
explicit, the figurative meaning of the terms "body and 
blood" as used by our Redeemer at his last supper. 
" Nam quando Dominus corpus suum partem vocat de 
multorum granorum adunatione congestum, popidum 

M 



90 NOT TRADITION, 

nostrum quern portabat indicat adunatum: et quando 
sanguinem suum vinum appellat de botris atque acinis 
plurimis expressum atque in unum coactum, gregem 
item nostrum significant commixtione adunatce multitu- 
dinis copulatumP In the 62d Epistle again occurs, if 
possible, a still stronger passage, which, as it appears 
to me, can by no interpretation, however strained, be 
supposed compatible with the doctrine of the real trans- 
mutation of the Eucharistic elements. He is writing 
to express his disapprobation of the strange usage which 
prevailed in some Churches, of consecrating the sacra- 
mental cup with simple water only. This practice he 
observes is in direct contradiction to the primitive insti- 
tution, our Saviour, as he asserts, having at his last 
supper presented to his disciples a mixed cup, of water 
blended with wine. Under this alleged mixture of wine 
and water he conceives that a deep mystery is intended 
to be conveyed. The wine of course he considers as 
representing the blood of Christ; the water, from a fan- 
ciful application of a passage in the Apocalypse, ch. 
xvii. 16, he assumes to express the human race. Thus, 
he proceeds, by the union of wine and water in the same 
cup we signify the unity which exists between Christ 
and his earthly followers. " If then," says he, " we con- 
secrate water only, we present a cup containing the 
human race without the accompaniment of Christ : if 
we consecrate wine only, then we present a cup contain- 
ing Christ detached from the human race. But by the 
union of both, a spiritual and heavenly sacrifice is con- 
summated." Now it is clear, according to this rather 
singular argument, that either a double transmutation, 
or no transmutation at all must be necessarily implied. 
If the wine is really converted into our Lord's blood, 
then must the water be also converted into the human 
race. If on the other hand the water only typically 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 91 

represents mankind, then the wine must, by a parity of 
inference, only typically represent the blood of Christ. 
Common reason at once rejects the supposition that half 
of this statement should be taken figuratively, and the 
other half literally. That the human race in idea, and 
the blood of Christ in substance should be capable of 
forming one common mixture. The following is the 
original passage. " Aquas populos signiflcare, in Apo- 
calypsi scriptura divina declarat, dicens, ' Aquae quas 
vidisti, super quas sedit meretrix ilia, populi et turbae 
et gentes ethnicorum sunt et linguae.' Quod scilicet 
perspicimus et in sacramento calicis contineri. Nam 
quia nos omnes portabat Christus, qui et peccata nostra 
portabat, videmus in aqua populum intelligi, in vino 
vero ostendi sanguinem Christi. Quando autem in 
calice vino aqua miscetur, Christo populus adunatur, 
et credentium plebs ei in quern credidit copulatur et 
conjungitur. Quae copulatio et conjunctio aquas et vini 
sic miscetur in calice Domini, ut commixtio ilia non 
possit ab invicem separari. * * * Sic in sanctificando 
calice Domini oflerri aqua sola non potest, quomodo nee 
vinum solum potest. Nam si vinum tantum quis offerat, 
sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis. Si vero aqua sit 
sola, plebs incipit esse sine Christo. Quando autem 
utrumque miscetur et adunatione confusa sibi invicem 
copulatur, tunc sacramentum spiritale et cceleste per- 
ficitur. Sic vero calix Domini non est aqua sola aut 
vinum solum, nisi utrumque sibi misceatur, quomodo 
nee corpus Domini potest esse farina sola, aut aqua sola, 
nisi utrumque adunatum fuerit et copulatum, et panis 
unius compage solidatum. Quo et ipso sacramento 
populus noster ostenditur adunatus, ut quemadmodum 
grana multa in unum collecta et commolita et commixta 
panem unum faciunt, sic in Christo, qui est panis coe- 
lestis, unum sciamus esse corpus cui conjunctus sit noster 
numerus et adunatus." 



92 NOT TRADITION, 

The notion of a sacrifice, being thus once annexed to 
the celebration of our Lord's Supper, the idea was, after 
no long interval, as might be expected, enlarged upon 
and improved by subsequent speculators. In the Apology 
of Julius Firmicus, addressed to the Emperors Constans 
and Constantius, we find indeed our Lord's Supper 
described in language which any Protestants of the 
present day might adopt, as strictly scriptural;* but 
certain it is, that early in the fourth century, the expres- 
sion of the " sacrifice of the Eucharist" began to be 
generally adopted; and before the close of that century 
the opinion of the Church on this point had nearly en- 
tirely assimilated itself to that of the modern Romanists. 
Thus, for instance, we find Augustine, in terms which 
surely no Protestant would acknowledge as orthodox, 
describing the celebration of it at his mother Monica's 
funeral, for the benefit of the soul of the deceased. At 



* I subjoin the following specimen of his manner. lie has been describing the 
Heathen ceremonies connected with the worship of Ceres and Bacchus, and thus 
proceeds: "Alius est cibus qui salutem largitur et vitam: alius est cibus qui homi- 
nem summo Deo commendat et reddit: alius est cibus qui languentes relevat, 
errantes revocat, lapsos erigit, qui moiientibus aeternae immortalitatis largitur in- 
signia. Christi panem, Christi poculum quaere, ut terrena fragilitate contempU, 
substantia hominis immortali pabulo saginetur. Quid est autem hie panis, vel quod 
poculum? de quo in libris Solomonis Sapientia magna voce proclamat. Ait enim, 
J Venite et manducate de meis panibus, et bibite vinum quod miscui.' Et Melchise- 
dech Rex Salem, et sacerdos summi Dei, revertenti Abrahae cum pane et vino bene- 
dictionis obtulit gratiam. . . . Ut autem manifestius diceretur quinam ille esset panis 
per quern miseras mortis vincuntur exitia, ipse Dominus sancto venerando ore sig- 
navit; ne per diversos tractatus spes hominum pravis interpretationibus fallerentur. 
Dicit enim in Evangelio Joannis, 'Ego sum panis vitae; qui venerit ad me non 
esuriet, et qui in me crediderit, non sitiet unquam.' Item in sequcntibus hoc idem 
simili modo significat: ait enim, 'Si quis sitit, veniat et bibat, qui credat in me.' 
Et rursus ipse, ut majestatis suae substantiam credentibus traderet, ait, ' Nisi ede- 
ritis carnem Eilii hominis, et biberitis sanguinem ejus, non habetis vitam in vobis.' 
Quare nihil vobis sit cum tympanis, cibi odio miseri mortales; salutaris cibi gratiam 
quaerite, et immortale poculum bibite. Christus vos epulis suis revocat ad lucem, 
et gravi veneno putres artus et torpescentia membra vivificat. Coslesti cibo renovate 
hominem perditum, ut quicquid in vobis mortuum est, divinis beneficiis renascatur," 
&e. De Errore Prof. Relig, 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 93 

so early a period had human invention overgrown and 
superseded the original enactments of Scripture ! " Cum, 
ecce corpus elatum est. Imus, et redimus sine lachry- 
mis. Nam neque in eis precibus, quas tibi fudimus, 
cum tibi offer retur pro ea sacriftcium pretii nostri, juxta 
sepulchrum posito cadavere, priusquam deponeretur, 
sicut illic fieri solet, nee in eis precibus fie vi."* Although, 
however, in writing the above passage, Augustine ap- 
pears to have intended, and probably did really intend, 
to convey a sentiment nearly in entire accordance with 
the present Romish doctrine respecting the Eucharist, 
such by no means seems to have been his uniform and 
steady opinion. So long as any particular doctrine is 
only in its growth and progress, the same individual 
will often be found at one time to express notions incon- 
sistent with those which he may have entertained at 
another, according to the circumstances which may 
chance to recommend at the moment the older or the 
more recent theory most strongly to his mind. The 
following short extracts from the work "De Civitate 
Dei" will, I think, show, that there were occasions in 
which Augustine seems to have coincided entirely with 
the received Protestant doctrine, and instead of consi- 
dering the sacrifice of the Eucharist as the oblation of 
our Saviour's transmuted body, would have literally 
assented to the supplication contained in our own estab- 
lished ritual, in which the Communicants "offer and 
present themselves, their souls and bodies, to be a reason- 
able, holy and lively sacrifice" to God. Thus, in 
chapter iii. of the 10th book we read, "Cum ad ilium 
sursum est, ejus est altare cor nostrum: ejus Unigenito 
cum Sacerdote placamus : ei cruentas victimas csedimus, 
quando usque ad sanguinem pro ejus veritate certamus; 

* Confessionum, lib. ix. cap. 4. 



94 NOT TRADITION, 

ei suavissimum adolemus incensum, cum in ejus con- 
spectu pio sanctoque amore flagramus." Again, chapter 
5, 6. ". Qusecunque igitur in ministerio tabernaculi sive 
templi multis modis de sacrificiis leguntur divinitus 
esse prsecepta, ad dilectionem Dei et proximi significan- 
dam referuntur: 'in his enim duobus prseceptis,' ut 
scriptum est <tota lex pendet et prophetse.' Proinde 
verum sacrificium est omne opus quod agitur, ut sancta 
societate inhsereamus Deo. . . . Cum igitur vera sacri- 
ficia opera sint misericordise, sive in nos ipsos, sive in 
proximos, quse referuntur ad Deum; opera vero miseri- 
cordise non ob aliud fiant nisi ut a miseria liberemur, ac 
per hoc ut beati simus . , . profecto efficitur ut tota 
ipsa redempta Civitas, hoc est, Congregatio Societasque 
sanctorum universale sacrificium offer atur Deo per Sacer- 
dotem magnum, qui etiam se ipsum obtulit in passione 
pro nobis, ut tanti capitis corpus essemus, secundum 
formam servi. Hanc enim obtulit: in hac oblatus est; 
quia secundum hanc Mediator est, in hac sacerdos, in 
hac sacrificium est. . ... Quod etiam sacramento al- 
taris fidelibus noto frequentat Ecclesia; ut ei demon- 
stretur quod in ed re quam offert, ipsa offer atur" And 
again, chapter 20. "Unde verus ille Mediator, in 
quantum formam servi accipiens Mediator effectus est 
Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus, cum in forma 
Dei sacrificium cum Patre sumat, cum quo et unus 
Deus est, tamen in forma servi sacrificium maluit esse 
quam sumere, ne vel hac occasione quisquam existimaret 
cuilibet sacrificandum esse creaturse. Per hoc, et Sa- 
cerdos est, ipse offerens, ipse et oblatio. Cujus rei 
sacramentum quotidianum esse voluit Ecclesia sacrifi- 
cium; qua j cum ipsius capitis corpus sit, se ipsam per 
ipsum discit off err e" From the age of Augustine down- 
wards, however, the progress of innovation was rapid. 
Ascetics and Mystics added year after year their almost 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 95 

daily contributions of fantastic speculations and mira- 
culous legends, which were greedily adopted by the 
ignorant and the credulous, until at length the monstrous 
doctrine of transubstantiation,* with all its strange and 
revolting consequences, became the established creed of 
the whole Christian world. 

What then, it may be asked, is the blessed Eucharist, 
after all, a mere commemorative ceremony, involving 
no special mystery, and conveying no peculiar spiritual 
grace? Are the bread and wine after consecration still 
mere bread and wine unchanged in their nature, and 
endued with no special sanctity? I answer, let us con- 
fine ourselves within the range of Scripture, and we 
shall acquire all the knowledge upon this subject which 
is really necessary for us. The same remark which has 
already been made on the question of baptism, will apply 
equally on this occasion. The performance of this rite 
has been positively enjoined by our Divine Master; the 
mode of its celebration has been intelligibly taught us 
by Him; and we may, therefore, be perfectly certain, 
that if we perform it according to the instructions we 
have received from Him, the divine grace and blessing 
annexed to this act of solemn duty and worship will 
inevitably follow. " This do in remembrance of me," 
was our Lord's parting command. The words are at 
once clear, and pregnant with meaning. We are to ap- 
proach the holy table with hearts warmed with the 
remembrance of Him; that is to say, with recollections 
of our own originally lost nature; of all that we have 



* The Romanists urge that our Saviour's expression, " This is my body, this is 
my blood," must necessarily be understood literally. They forget that, according 
to St. Matthew's statement, after the benediction of the cup, when he had desig- 
nated it as his blood, he still continued to call it " the fruit of the vine." Surely 
the latter expression requires to be taken at least as much in a literal sense as the 
former. 



96 NOT TRADITION, 

done and thought amiss ; of our wanderings, our rebel- 
lions, our worldliness, our ingratitude; and we are to 
set this consciousness of our own total want of desert 
against all that He has done and suffered for us. We 
are, by eating and drinking the visible representations 
of that holy body and blood which were sacrificed for 
us, to awaken our feelings of humble gratitude, and to 
learn and strive, so far as human nature will permit, to 
assimilate ourselves to Him who put on himself the form 
of man for our sake, and to run our course as regenerate 
beings, redeemed by that act of mercy from the domi- 
nion of sin.* Now can we seriously assert, that obe- 
dience to a command imposing upon us this course of 
holy duty, is inadequate to the wants of our spiritual 
constitution, or unworthy of Him for whom we received 
it? Shall we, I ask, be adding to, or diminishing from 
its solemnity and its salutary operation, by building up, 
and superadding to it our own arbitrary definitions and 
unauthorized speculations? Look at the Romanist at- 
tending the sacrifice of the mass. He kneels before the 
altar, an almost indifferent spectator, trusting that the 
mysterious ceremony of which he is an eye-witness, but 
in the performance of which he has no personal share, 
will some way or other operate to the redemption of his 
soul and the expiation of his sins. Look at the Pro- 
testant approaching with reverence to partake of those 
expressive elements which remind him, by tokens more 
heart-stirring than any power of language can convey, 
of what he might have been, and of what he humbly 



* The above paragraph beginning, with the words, " The performance of this 
rite" — down to " dominion of sin," has been quoted at length by the British Critic 
of April 1839, with "earnest sorrow" at its serious and lamentable laxity of doctri- 
nal statements!" On what ground the anonymoas critic founds this sweeping and 
severe censure, I am quite at a loss to imagine. Let the impartial reader decide 
between us. 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 97 

trusts that he now is, through the vast expiation which 
has been made for him. Surely no external ceremony, 
no pomp or solemnity of worship, no inculcation of an 
unscriptural and inconceivable mystery in the former 
case, can afford any compensation for the extinction or 
diminution of that spiritual worship of the heart which 
a due participation in the holy Eucharist, according to 
the terms of our Lord's original institution, is so well 
calculated to encourage. Keeping ourselves within 
Scripture, I repeat, we must do right. Calling in the 
aid of tradition, we can scarcely fail to go wrong. The 
mind will grow dizzy in wandering through its own 
mazes. Speculation will lead to speculation; and be- 
neath every presumed mystery a still deeper mystery 
will unfold itself, until the most soul-stirring ordinance 
of our religion will become a mere riddle for the em- 
ployment of the controversialist; and all the captious, 
not to say most unseemly questions, which almost neces- 
sarily grow out of the theory of transubstantiation, will 
occupy the place of the most holy aspirations which our 
mortal nature is capable of entertaining, 

OF CHURCH GOVERNMENT, 

The Church of Christ being a community of human 
beings, professing to conform to a given rule for the 
attainment of a definite object, it seems to follow, as a 
matter of course, that such a body can be kept duly 
together, and be made to act consistently with reference 
to that object, only by the establishment of a legitimate 
and graduated authority. This is so self-evident, that 
the case of ecclesiastical government would appear to 
require no other arguments in its favour than those 
which are universally acknowledged to apply to civiL 
But we are not left to arrive at this conclusion by infe- 
rence only. We learn from Scripture that three distinct 

N 



98 NOT TRADITION, 

grades of spiritual officers existed in the apostolic age, 
— -namely, apostles, who undertook the general superin- 
tendence of the Church; presbyters, to whom was 
entrusted the office of exhortation and teaching; and 
deacons, acting in the capacity of subordinate ministers, 
and training themselves by taking their part in the spi- 
ritual instruction of the laity, for promotion to the higher 
office of presbyter. Thus far, with the additional fact 
that the appointment of these respective officers was a 
solemn act of the assembled Church, invoking the bless- 
ing of the Holy Spirit, the book of the Acts, and the 
Epistles of Paul to Timothy and Titus, expressly teach 
us. The only remaining questions then are, — first, 
" whether the graduated form of Church government 
which we find sanctioned by revelaton, is binding upon 
the Christian community in all future ages;" and, 
secondly, " what is the nature and degree of the spiri- 
tual power and authority which the act of ordination 
may be supposed to confer upon the parties receiving it. 
The mere statement of these questions, it is evident, at 
once opens the door to an infinite variety of specula- 
tions. All these, however, it will of course be impossi- 
ble for me to pursue in detail; I must, therefore, attempt 
to treat them only in a summary manner. 

Let me then observe, in the first place, that, as the 
threefold order of " apostles, presbyters, and deacons," 
is decidedly acknowledged in Scripture, a strong "a 
priori" argument exists for our preference of this pecu- 
liar form of Church government to any other. We 
know that it at least has received the divine sanction, 
but we cannot confidently assert the same of any of 
those various forms of discipline which later times have 
produced. Again, before we abandon what is already 
established by so high authority, in favour of innova- 
tions r however plausible, we are bound, in common 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 99 

propriety, to show, that what we thus surrender has 
either failed from the first to accomplish its professed 
object, or from the change of manners and the effects of 
time has necessarily become useless and obsolete. An- 
other, and a strong argument for retaining the Church 
discipline established and transmitted to us by the 
Apostles, is found in the fact, that religion comes to us 
in the form of a coercion and restraint; that it is a 
remedy emanating from an external source, for the 
correction of the dearest and most besetting sins and 
infirmities of human nature ; and that, under such cir- 
cumstances, it would be absurd to suppose that any 
communities of men, if left to the free choice of their 
respective spiritual teachers, would do otherwise than 
prefer the preachers of smooth things, to the inculcators 
of the terrors and threats of sound revelation. For 
these obvious reasons, (and abundance of others might 
be adduced,) it would seem to be self-evident that the 
form of Church government which our own country 
retained, when, together with a large portion of Europe, 
she threw off the yoke of the Church of Rome, is 
immeasurably the safest. All that can be said of other 
modes of discipline is, that they may be right. Of our 
own it appears certain, that, at all events^ it is right. 
Our Saviour, indeed, has declared generally, that 
"where two or three are gathered together in his name, 
there he is in the midst of them;" and this declaration 
may, I admit, be quoted, as affording a probable sanc- 
tion to other modes of Church discipline than our own, 
when adopted upon conscientious principles. It is, 
accordingly, under the authority of this text, that I am 
inclined to hope that the assemblies of those other 
denominations of Christians, who, from no love of 
schism, but from a sincere wish to approximate nearer 
to the simplicity of the primitive ages, have seceded 



100 NOT TRADITION, 

from our community, may still find favour in his sight, 
But still, I repeat, the preponderance of argument and 
probability is very much in favour of our more apostolic 
and scriptural Church. And with this conviction we 
may surely rest satisfied, without feeling it our duty to 
censure those who conscientiously think otherwise. 

But now follows the perplexing question, respecting 
the exact degree and nature of the power entrusted by 
Christ to his priesthood. On this point the members of 
our own Establishment are known to entertain very 
different and almost contradictory opinions. Some, 
adopting the high principles and notions of the Church 
of Rome, consider the presbyter or priest as a kind of 
intermediate agent between God and man : as one who 
alone can intercede effectively in prayer for the people ; 
as one without whose direct agency the sacraments 
would lose their effect ; and one who possesses the 
power of authoritatively loosening and tying, of par- 
doning or retaining the sins of those committed to his 
care. Others there are who explain away all these 
high views, and look upon the priest merely as the 
person appointed for the maintenance of good order 
and uniformity of worship ; the effect of whose minis- 
terial labours must depend entirely upon, the good 
disposition and spiritual-mindedness of his respective 
hearers. Now it is evident that, in order to decide 
between these conflicting opinions, we must have re- 
course to Scripture only. On no one subject perhaps 
ought mere uninspired human nature to be less trusted 
than in this, which involves so many questions of per- 
sonal ambition on the one hand, with so many feelings 
of timidity and superstition on the other. We all learn 
from daily experience how much there is of what has 
been called natural Popery within us. Alarmed by 
the terrors of another world, men cling instinctively to 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 101 

each other, and try to find in some authorized minister 
from heaven that encouragement which they cannot 
find in their own breasts. Like despairing invalids, 
they are ready to adopt every remedy, good or bad, 
which comes plausibly recommended to them. No 
wonder then, that, under such circumstances, one set 
of human beings has been ready, from one set of mo- 
tives, to accept, and to believe in the legitimacy of that 
authority which has been voluntarily tendered to them ; 
whilst others, from equally natural causes, have wil- 
lingly submitted to a spiritual servitude of their own 
creation. 

Now, that the feelings which I am here describing 
did come into play at an early period of the Church 
may be reasonably inferred from the following fact. 
The Apostles appointed only three grades of church 
rulers, of which the lowest, the Deacons, were strictly, 
as their name demonstrates, " Ministers," persons ap- 
pointed to perform the humblest functions connected 
with instruction in spiritual things. But this unaspi- 
ring simplicity of the apostolical age was of short dura- 
tion. It was not long before this latter office, which 
was originally one of humility, came to be considered 
one of dignity. The Deacon, from a servant rose gra- 
dually into the situation of an important functionary in 
the church ; and as he ascended, the superior orders of 
course rose with him. Hence, all the three ranks of 
the hierarchy became in the course of time so far up- 
lifted, as it would appear, above their primitive level, as 
to leave below the lowest a kind of vacant space, which 
was successively filled up by the more modern orders 
of sub-deacon, door-keeper, exorcist, reader, and aco- 
lyth. Thus we are told, when about the middle of the 
fourth century Hilary of Poictiers encouraged the cele- 
brated Martin of Tours to take upon himself the office 



102 NOT TRADITION, 

of deacon, his humility revolted from the assumption of 
what was then considered so high a post, and that he could 
be persuaded to undertake no more exalted a position 
than that of exorcist. Now it cannot, I think, be denied 
that the introduction of these new officers into the church 
is indicative of the fact, that the three original orders 
had in some degree overstepped that position and rank 
allotted to them in the days of the Apostles. If then 
we contemplate the circumstances of their office, accord- 
ing to the notions of later times, we view them in a false 
position. In order to learn exactly what is the degree 
of legitimate authority to which these three classes of 
church governors are strictly entitled, we must, I repeat, 
have recourse to Scripture only, and not to the uncertain 
and deceptive light afforded by tradition. 

Now we must observe, in the first place, that in the 
Epistles to Timothy and Titus, St. Paul confines his 
directions for the conduct of Presbyters and Deacons to 
their modes of exhortation, of teaching, and of their 
general government of God's household; making no 
allusion whatever to what, in theological language, is 
usually called "the power of the keys;" in other words, 
the power of absolution, and the exercise of those higher 
functions which by many persons are supposed to be 
conveyed to the clergy at their ordination. In accord- 
ance with this view, we nowhere find the Christian 
minister designated in the New Testament by any of 
those terms which are used to express the office of 
Priest in its Levitical sense; namely, that of a "sacrifi- 
culus" or intercessor, between God and man on the 
behalf of the congregation. On the contrary, it is 
expressly asserted that the High Priest of the Christian 
covenant, analogous to the High Priest of the Mosaical 
law, is no less a being than our Lord himself, whilst 
the earthly hierarchy are styled, according to their 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 103 

respective offices, by trie simple titles of Bishop or 
Overseer, Elder or Presbyter, Deacon or Minister. 
Thus far nothing can be more clear and explicit than 
the information afforded us by Scripture. To the sub- 
sequent introduction of what are called the inferior 
orders, such as they are still retained in the Church of 
Rome, into the Christian hierarchy, I have already 
adverted. This change bespeaks clearly a serious inno- 
vation in the form of ecclesiastical government, and 
strongly marks that gradual deviation from the exclu- 
sive authority and sanctions of Scripture which com- 
menced at so early a period of the Church history, and 
which in after times attained to so portentous an height. 
Cyprian, a person not at all disposed in most points to 
undervalue the spiritual privileges of his office, speaks 
in great detail in various parts of his writings of the 
forms of ordination observed in his day, and of the 
division of their respective functions and authority 
among the different grades of the ministry. From his 
statements we learn that, whilst the act of consecration 
or of ordination appears to have been then exercised 
almost exclusively by the Bishop, the election to the 
several orders of the Church, from the lowest up to the 
very highest, previous to consecration, was made by 
the almost universal suffrage of the assembled clergy 
and laity. Thus in the 23d Epistle of his correspon- 
dence we find him apologizing to his Presbyters and 
Deacons, that under an urgent necessity he had ventured 
to ordain to the very humble offices of Sub-deacon and 
Reader, Saturus and Optatus, without the consent of 
the whole body of clergy obtained at the moment, and 
pleading as his excuse that these two persons had been 
approved of as candidates for the ministry at the last 
general assemblage of their community. Again, in the 
32d Epistle, he justifies himself in like manner to the 



104 NOT TRADITION, 

clergy and laity for having, without their previous con- 
sent being obtained, admitted Aurelius to the office of 
Reader, in consequence of the testimony which he had 
borne to the Christian faith in banishment and on the 
rack. Again, in the 67th Epistle, we find him asserting 
the necessity of obtaining the consent of the whole 
Christian community of the respective Churches to the 
several distinct acts of consecration to the episcopal 
office, or of ordination to the rank of presbyter or 
deacon. The following are his own words. " Quod et 
ipsum videmus de divina auctoritate descendere, ut 
Sacerdos plebe prsesente sub omnium oculis deligatur, 
et dignus atque idoneus publico judicio ac testimonio 
comprobetur." Again, "Coram omni synagoga jubet 
Deus constitui Sacerdotem, id est, instruit et ostendit 
ordinationes sacerdotales non nisi sub popuii assistentis 
conscientia fieri oportere, ut plebe prsesente vel detegan- 
tur malorum crimina, vel bonorum merita prsedicentur, 
et sit ordinatio justa et legitima quae omnium suffragio 
et judicio fuerit examinata. Quod postea secundum 
divina magisteria observatur in Actis Apostolorum : 
. . . nee hoc in episcoporum tantum et sacerdotum 
sed et in diaconorum ordinationibus observasse apostolos 
animadvertimus," &c. Some light traces of this usage, 
it will be remembered, still exists, though almost as 
mere matters of form, in our own church. Such then 
being the form of Church government established in 
the Apostolic period, and such the first modifications 
which it underwent in the primitive ages, the question 
still remains "what was the degree and nature of the 
authority which these different grades in the Christian 
ministry must be admitted to have possessed?" If the 
observation which has already been made respecting 
the abolition in the gospel scheme of every thing resem- 
bling the Le^vitical Priesthood of the old covenant be 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 105 

correct, then indeed an important part of this question 
appears to have been answered, and it would seem that 
discipline, prayer, the instruction of the laity, and the 
preservation of good order in the ceremonials of public 
worship constitute, and have ever constituted much the 
larger portion of the duties annexed to the clerical office. 
Still it would be presumptuous in me, were I to hazard 
the opinion that no spiritual gifts or privileges attach to 
the Christian ministry beyond those here stated. The 
totally detached and distinct character of the clergy as set 
apart from the laity from the very earliest ages of the 
Church, would certainly appear to announce something 
more; especially as the momentous question next pre- 
sents itself, whether or not the parting injunctions of our 
Saviour to his Apostles before his ascension, and the 
power which he then conferred upon them, were intended 
to descend in like manner to their successors in the 
Church through all future ages. In a certain sense, and 
under a precautionary protest against any assumption by 
man of authority not expressly recognised in Scripture, 
this query must, I think, be answered in the affirma- 
tive. It appears to me, for instance, that with respect to 
the due administration of the Sacraments, whether we 
look merely to the point of discipline, decency, and 
order, or take higher and more controverted ground, the 
performance of these solemn ordinances does belong 
exclusively to the clerical office. Both the rites of 
baptism and of the eucharist require of necessity the 
superintendence of some one person to direct their due 
performance; and it appears to follow naturally, from 
plain reason and the analogy of revelation, that such 
superintendence falls necessarily into the province of 
the duly ordained minister. Any interference of the 
laity on those points would appear, therefore, to be an 
act of unauthorized presumption, contumacious to the 
o 



106 NOT TRADITION, 

discipline and usefulness of the Church, and of course 
offensive to God. But still, what shall we say to the 
yet higher claim asserted by many theologians to the 
power of absolution? This is a far more difficult and 
more questionable point. My own views and opinions 
are as follow. I conceive the usage of confession of our 
sins and weaknesses to each other (if we suppose it done 
in full sincerity, for the purpose of obtaining an un- 
biassed opinion respecting our spiritual state, and of 
receiving consolation and encouragement in our attempts 
to recover our lost road to a holy life,) to constitute one of 
the best and most salutary exercises of which our nature 
is capable. No man is actually a good judge of his own 
spiritual condition. From an over-sanguine or an over- 
anxious temperament, we are all apt to put either too high 
or too low an estimate upon ourselves. The mind of 
some indifferent person, if that person is one who is 
directed solely by kind, compassionate, yet firm and un- 
compromising Christian principles, is assuredly the best 
point of appeal to which we can have recourse for 
obtaining that reasonable degree of consolation and 
exhortation which our case requires. Is it then an 
improbable supposition that God has really annexed a 
blessing to a course of .moral training thus salutary, as 
it undoubtedly would be where the sincerity, good 
intention, and sound judgment of both parties, of the 
penitent and of the referee, were such as they should 
be? " What you loose upon earth shall be loosed in hea- 
ven." Does not this expression authorize us to believe 
that the comfort and assurance of pardon which, relying 
upon the merciful tenour of Scripture, we venture to 
hold out to an erring but repentant brother, will really 
be ratified by the Almighty himself? I own, I see 
nothing arrogant in this assumption. It was just in 
this spirit that the Apostle Paul dealt with the inces- 






BUT SCRIPTURE. 107 

tuous person mentioned in his Epistles to the Corin- 
thians. That man had been living in an open state of 
incest; and St. Paul, after severely reprimanding his 
church for their connivance at sin of this deep character, 
called upon them to show their own abhorrence of the 
guilt of the offender, as well as to hold out a salutary 
lesson to himself, by withdrawing for the present from 
all intercourse with him. The order was obeyed, and 
the culprit was accordingly brought to a deep sense of 
his own criminality. Then it was that the Apostle's 
language assumed another character. He did not, how- 
ever, pronounce over him a solemn and formal absolu- 
tion, authoritatively remitting his sins, but he did what 
is much more seemly in a frail human being, and more 
in conformity with the tenour of Scripture : he called 
upon the Corinthian brethren to restore to him the offices 
of friendship ; to comfort him for what was past ; and to 
prevent his falling into despair, by holding out to him 
the hopes of pardon as afforded by the Gospel. The 
same just and reasonable view of the extent of the power 
of sacerdotal absolution appears from the statements of 
Cyprian to have prevailed in the Christian church, at 
all events as late as the middle of the third century. 
According to this writer, the Church seems to have con- 
sidered itself as possessing the power of absolute and 
plenary remission of sins only once in the life of each 
individual; that is to say, at the time of his or her bap- 
tism. That rite conveying, as Scripture teaches, a 
complete regeneration of the old man, and the putting 
off the former corrupt nature, an entire abolition of the 
consequences of all previous transgression was neces- 
sarily supposed to be accomplished by it. This opinion 
the Nicene Council subsequently confirmed by the 
admission into its creed of the article of belief "in one 
baptism for the remission of sins." The period of bap- 



108 NOT TRADITION, 

tism being however once passed, it would not appear 
from the authority just quoted, that the clergy of that 
early age considered themselves as invested with any 
authority to condemn or to absolve, beyond the external 
ceremony of excommunication from the society of the 
Church in the case of any heavy delinquency, and of 
re-admission to it upon the exhibition of sufficient proofs 
of repentance on the part of the offender, accompanied 
with earnest prayers to the Almighty that he, who can 
alone judge of the inward state of the heart, would 
according to the sincerity of the penitent's contrition, 
ratify the sentence of reconciliation which his Church 
now ventured to pronounce. Thus, in the book " De 
L apsis," we read, " Quseso, vos, fratres, acquiescite 
salubribus remediis, consiliis obedite melioribus; cum 
lacrymis nostris vestras lacrymas jungite ; cum nostro 
gemitu vestros gemitus copulate. Rogamus vos, ut 
pro vobis Deum rogare possimus. Preces ipsas ad vos 
prius vertimus, quibus Deum pro vobis, ut misereatur, 
oramus. . . . Potest ille indulgentiam dare ; sententiam 
suam potest ille denectere. Poenitenti operanti, roganti 
potest clementer ignoscere, potest in acceptum referre 
quicquid pro talibus et petierint martyr es et fecerint 
sacer dotes." Again, in Epistle 51, whilst recommend- 
ing the pronouncing the forgiveness of the Church over 
penitents at the point of death, he adds, *< Neque enim 
prsejudicamus Domino judicaturo quominus, si poeni- 
tentiam plenam et justam peccatoris invenerit, tunc 
ratum faciat quod a nobis fuerit hie statutum ; si vero 
nos aliquis pcenitentise simulatione deluserit, Deus, qui 
non deridetur, et qui cor hominis intuetur, de his quae 
nos minus perspeximus judicet, et servorum suoruni sen- 
tentiam Dominus emendet" And again, in Epistle 74. 
" Lapsis quoque fratribus, et post lavacrum salutare a 
diabolo vulneratis, per poenitentiam medela quseratur; 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 109 

7W7i quasi a nobis i*e7nissio7ie?n peccato7*u?n consequa7itur, 
sed ut per nos ad intelligentiam delictorum suorum 
convertantur, et Domino plenius satisfacere cogantur." 
To such sentiments as the above no Protestant surely 
could find any thing to object. They appear replete 
with good sense and true piety. Let our Church, or 
let any Church adopt such reasonable and evangelical 
discipline as this, and the usage of confession and abso- 
lution will become one of its brightest and most valuable 
ornaments.* But not so has human arrogance on one 
hand, and superstition on the other, thought proper to 
adopt them. Mortal agency, and a new set of mediators 
between God and man, have been called in, as if for the 
sole purpose of interrupting that direct intercourse of 
the contrite sinner with the Redeemer and Creator to 
which the Gospel would invite him. The divine mercy 



* The sentiments here expressed on the subject of confession and absolution, are 
in near accordance with those of Calvin, as conveyed in the third book of his Insti- 
tutes, chap. 4. sect. 12. "Tametsi Jacobus (Jac. v. 16) neminem nominatim assig- 
nando, in cujus sinura nos exoneremus, liberum permittit delectum, ut ei confitea- 
mur, qui ex ecclesise grege maxime idoneus fuerit visus; quia taraen pastores prae 
aliis utplurimum judicandi sunt idonei, potissimum etiam nobis eligendi erunt. 
Dico autem ideo prae aliis appositos, quod ipsa ministerii vocatione nobis a Domino 
designantur, quorum ex ore erudiamur ad subigenda et corrigenda peccata, turn 
consolationem ex veniae fiducia percipiamus. 

" Quemadmodum enim mutuae admonitionis et correctionis officium Christianis 
quidem omnibus demandatum est, ministris tamen specialiter est injunctum: sic 
quum omnes mutuo nos debeamus consolari, et in fiducia divinae misericordiae con- 
firmare, videmus tamen ministros ipsos, ut de remissione peccatorum certiores red- 
dant eonscientias, testes ejus ac sponsores constitui, adeo ut ipsi dicantur remittere 
peccata et animas solvere. Quum audis hoc illis tribui, in usum tuum esse cogita. 
Ergo id officii sui unusquisque fidelium esse meminerit, si ita privatim angitur et 
afHictatur peccatorum sensu, ut se explicare nisi alieno adjutorio nequeat, non neg- 
ligere quod illi a Domino offertur remedium ; nempe, ut ad se sublevandum privata. 
confessione apud suum pastorem utatur, ac ad solatia sibi adhibenda privatim ejus 
operam imploret, cujus officium est et publice et privatim populum Dei Evangelica 
doctrine consolari. Verum ea moderatione semper utendum est, ne, ubi Deus nihil 
certum praescribit, conscientiae certo jugo alligentur. Hinc sequitur, ejus modi con- 
fessionem liberam esse oportere, ut non ab omnibus exigatur, sed iis tantum com. 
mendetur qui ea se opus habere intelligent," &c. 



110 NOT TRADITION, 

has been declared to be ineffectual, unless conveyed to 
us in earthly vessels. Accordingly, an irrespective 
power of absolution, dependent solely upon the will of 
the priesthood, has been claimed by the Church of 
Rome, and most impiously has it been assumed that the 
Divine judgments may be arbitrarily launched or with- 
held, according to the dictations of human caprice. 
Thus, it was made one of the charges against John 
Huss, at the council of Constance, that he had denied 
the position, "that spiritual censures still have their 
effect even when unjustly pronounced."* When such 
proofs are before us of the strange lengths to which the 
perversions of the best institutions of Scripture may be 
carried, surely it is time for us to pause before we assert 
an authority thus liable to abuse, beyond the strict letter 
of what we find clearly written. Spiritual ambition 
and spiritual timidity, though opposite principles, are 
both in their turns the besetting weaknesses of our 
nature, nor can we be too much on our guard against 
them. Whilst then we admit that Scripture has given 
its sanction to the practice of mutual confession, and, 
within certain limits and in a sober sense, may even be 
alleged in favour of the doctrine of absolution; still, I 
think, we cannot watch with too suspicious a jealousy, 
or deprecate too strongly the extension of a claim which, 
if once allowed to pass the due bounds, will convert the 
holiest office of Christian charity into tyranny, and a 



* It is a striking proof of the effect of party zeal over our better judgments, that 
a late pious and learned member of this University should have been led to advocate 
this very doctrine. " I am sorry to see Jeremy Taylor so heretical about excom- 
munication. He says, that when unjust it is no evil." Froude's Remains, vol. i. 
p. 322. 

When he hears such a sentiment as the one above, declared to be heretical, a 
Protestant will be reminded of the expression of St. Paul: "After the way which 
they call heresy, so worship I the God of my fathers." 



BUT SCRIPTURE. Ill 

solemn trust, intended for the comfort and edification of 
our afflicted brethren, into a blasphemous usurpation of 
the incommunicable attributes of the Almighty. 

OF PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 

Of all the deviations from, or superadditions to, the 
strict letter of Holy Writ which the course of time has 
introduced, none comes to the pious mind recommended 
by such strong, pure, and seemingly pious motives, as 
the usage of prayer for the dead. A religious and affec- 
tionate heart left alone, a solitary loiterer in this world, 
by friends with whom its earliest and best associations 
were interwoven, anxious for the eternal welfare of those 
who have been thus taken away, and perhaps, (as is 
almost ever the case respecting those whom we have 
loved) reproaching itself for omitted opportunities of 
kindness towards them when they were capable of re- 
ceiving it, naturally follows them in thought to the invi- 
sible world, and would, if it dare, recommend them by 
its prayers to the divine mercy. Desires such as these 
no doubt appear at first sight both amiable and reason- 
able. But then, in opposition to this train of thought, 
occurs the misgiving whether we are authorized by that 
communication of his will which God has revealed to 
us, to assume this office of intercession ; to venture upon 
this act of interference with his awful and hidden dis- 
pensations. Do we know what the intermediate state 
of the soul is between its separation from the body, and 
its re-union to it on the day of the resurrection? If we 
do not, are we justified in assuming what it is from our 
own mere conjecture, and, building upon that conjecture, 
in venturing to obtrude our prayers accordingly upon 
the Almighty? This scruple is one which our common 
reason obviously suggests to us at the very first aspect 



112 NOT TRADITION, 

of the question, and for the removal of which we of 
course have no place of appeal but Scripture only. 
What then says Scripture? The information which we 
seek, is too important both to ourselves and to those 
friends whose loss we mourn, not to find its due place 
in that full revelation of the divine will which the Bible 
contains, were the permission sought for in itself reason- 
able or expedient. We look into our Bibles accordingly, 
and so far from finding our doubts removed, we remark 
only a guarded silence from first to last on this important 
subject. We find in the Levitical law injunctions to 
prayer and rites of expiation for almost every possible 
modification of living guilt or suffering ; men are taught 
there, and in the later writings of the prophets, to recom- 
mend themselves, their relatives, their friends, their 
country under every variety of circumstances to the 
divine blessing ; but still it is always for the living that 
this service is enjoined. The same observation applies 
equally to the New Testament. Among all the injunc- 
tions of our Saviour and his Apostles on the subject 
both for ourselves and others, not one word, not one 
single intimation or insinuation occurs which would ap- 
pear to sanction any interference on our part with the 
mysterious condition of the dead. This uniform silence 
on such a subject cannot surely be without its meaning. 
If any allusions can be traced in the inspired volume to 
this question, they are at all events too obscure and in- 
cidental to throw much light upon it; and the light 
which they may appear to throw, is adverse and not 
favourable to the hypothesis stated. Perhaps the fol- 
lowing text is as apposite as any which can be named 
on this subject. " None of them can by any means 
redeem his brother" says the Psalmist, " nor give to God 
a ransom for him ; for the redemption of their souls is 






BUT SCRIPTURE. 113 

precious, and it ceasethfor ever"* The only record at- 
tempted to be quoted in favour of this usage is the well- 
known passage in the 2d book of Maccabees, a work 
totally devoid of authority on points of spiritual doctrine, 
being, as is well-known, merely an abridgment of the 
larger and now lost history of one Jason of Cyrene, 
recording events connected with the fortunes of the 
Jewish nation after the time when it is universally ad- 
mitted that the inspiration of the Old Testament had 
ceased. 

I repeat then, what God appears thus purposely to 
have left in the dark cannot .. surely be deemed to afford 
a legitimate or innocent opportunity for man's interfe- 
rence. It is in vain that we urge our finer, our affec- 
tionate, and, as we may deem, our holier feelings in 
favour of this usage. The obvious answer to this plea 
is, that our religion is a thing revealed to us by heaven, 
and not derivable from the dreams of our imagination, or 
the suggestions of our wishes, however apparently well 
directed. Once pass this well-defined line, and make 
every thing which in the spiritual world may appear to 
us a desirable object of belief, an actual article of faith, 
and there will be no limit whatever to our intellectual 
and religious wanderings. A Christian man's faith will 
in that case become a tissue of mere rapturous mysti- 
cism, and every theory which can be made to present a 
general appearance of plausible attractiveness, or to ac- 
cord with our finer, perhaps our sickly sympathies, will 



* It may be observed thafwhcn St. Paul in the first Epistle to the Thessalo- 
nians, chap, iv., would comfort his flock upon Christian principles, upon the bereave- 
ment they sustain by the death of their friends, he does not for a moment allude to 
any service which they can afford to the dead by their prayers, nor does he en- 
courage any attempt at intercommuning with them, by the practice of any religious 
observance. And yet surely he would have done so, were such a practice justifiable. 
His only argument is, " we shall one day see them again.'''' " Them which sleep in 
Jesus will God brinsr with Him." 



114 NOT TRADITION, 

become permanently interwoven in our minds with the 
substantial facts of revelation. It appears then to me as 
a point beyond contradiction, that this impulse which 
we all feel on certain occasions, and for which we all of 
us would allege substantial scriptural authority if we 
could, is one in which it would be neither safe nor inno- 
cent to indulge. "It is written, Thou shalt not tempt 
the Lord thy God." Let me add, that the world has 
now for many centuries had experience of the practical 
working of this usage upon the habits and religious 
feelings of mankind; and, as might be anticipated of a 
custom which has no divine sanction to plead in its 
favour, it has not worked well It has led to much delu- 
sion and to much superstition; it has suggested religious 
usages quite alien to the spirit of primitive Christianity ; 
it has hardened and deterred bad men from timely re- 
pentance and reformation by holding out to them the 
delusive hope of posthumous forgiveness through the 
prayers of the Church ; it has become the most prolific 
source of temporal gain to an ignorant and corrupt priest- 
hood ; and last, though not least, it has virtually super- 
seded in men's opinion the one great source of mediation 
and redemption for the dead as for the living, the all- 
effective merits of Christ. Such are the obvious argu- 
ments against it, to which I am not aware that any 
satisfactory answer has been returned. 

Recommended, however, by so many circumstances 
of attraction as it obviously possesses, we are not to be 
surprised that this usage found an early introduction 
into the Christian church. It is true, that we can 
remark no trace of it in the writings of the two first 
centuries, but from the time that Platonism formed its 
first fatal union with theology, its spread appears to 
have been rapid. In the writings of Cyprian we find 
occasional allusions to it, as practised by the Church in 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 115 

his age. At the same time, it is right to observe, on the 
other hand, that, in at least two cases where this practice 
is mentioned by that Father, the mention of the dead in 
the prayers of the Church appears to have been intended 
rather for the purpose of returning thanks to the Al- 
mighty for the virtues of the deceased, than for depre- 
cating future punishment for his transgressions. This 
view of the question, it may be observed, accords exactly 
with the service of our own liturgy in the prayer for 
the Church militant, where we " bless God's holy name 
for all his servants departed this life in his faith and 
fear." The two passages in Cyprian to which I allude 
are the following. The first occurs in the 36th epistle, 
in which that good bishop requests of his clergy that 
they will be careful to note down the exact date of the 
martyrdom of every sufferer for the Christian faith, in 
order that the Church may be enabled to make annual 
mention of them in a commemorative service. ' ' Denique 
et dies eorum quibus excedunt annotate; ut commemo- 
rationes eorum inter memorias martyrum celebrare 
possimus. Quamquam Tertullus fidelissimus et devo- 
tissimus frater noster pro csetera sollicitudine et cura sua 
quam fratribus in omni obsequio operationis impertit 
qui nee illic circa curam corporum deest, scripserit et 
scribat ac significet mihi dies quibus in carcere beati 
fratres nostri ad immortalitatem gloriosse mortis exitu 
transeunt, et celebrentur hie a nobis oblationes et sacri- 
ficia ob commemorationes eorum, quae cito vobiscum 
Domino protegente celebrabimus." The other passage 
to which I have alluded occurs in the 65th epistle, where 
Cyprian is found recommending that, inasmuch as one 
of his clergy, " Victor," had in his last will violated one 
of the regulations of the Church, by appointing a brother 
Clergyman his Executor, he should not be honoured by 
the Church in its usual commemoration in the service 



116 NOT TRADITION, 

for the dead. " Et ideo Victor, cum contra formam 
nuper in consiliis a sacerdotibus datam Geminium Faus- 
tinum presbyterum ausus sit tutorem constituere, non 
est quod pro dormitione ejus apud vos fiat oblatio ; aut 
deprecatio aliqua nomine ejus in ecclesia frequentetur ; 
ut sacerdotum decretum religiose et necessarie factum 
servetur a nobis; simul et ceteris fratribus detur exem- 
plum, ne quis sacerdotes et ministros Dei altari ejus et 
ecclesise vacantes ad seculares molestias devocet." In 
whatever light we may be disposed to consider the fore- 
going extracts, the account, at all events, given in the 
history of the subsequent century is less equivocal. In 
Augustine's narrative at a later period of the death of 
his mother Monica, we find him recording in express 
terms her last injunctions, that the prayers of the Church 
should be offered up for her after her departure, with a 
plainness which would show that supplications for the 
dead had become by that time an established usage. 
" Ponite, inquit, hoc corpus ubicunque: nihil vos ejus 
cura conturbet. Tantum illud vos rogo, ut ad Domini 
altar e memineritis mei, ubi fueritis." 

It was surely then not without good reason that a 
custom thus problematical, however attractive, which 
in the early days of our English reformed Church was 
considered a kind of open question, should by a wise 
caution have been in our later formularies totally dis- 
couraged. Protestants indeed have been found, at a 
much later period, who have thought themselves jus- 
tified in adopting this practice. Thus Dr. Johnson is 
recorded to have used it; having had his scruples on 
that point removed by the writings of Dr. Brett, the 
well-known Non-juror. Others also still more recently 
have afforded it their sanction. Still it cannot be 
doubted that they can cite no scriptural authority for 
their opinion; and such being the case, it is not very 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 117 

obvious by what arguments they can either satisfy their 
own consciences as to the entire harmlessness of the 
usage, or venture to recommend it for the adoption of 
others. 

OF ORDINANCES. 

The Christian scheme is uniformly designated in 
Scripture as a system of spiritual worship, a religion of 
liberty, free from the cumbrous and vexatious yoke of 
mere ritual observances. The means of salvation and 
justification which it affords, are the expansion of one 
single fundamental principle, namely, faith in the re- 
deeming merits of Christ, with its necessary accom- 
paniment, holiness of life. The development of this one 
great primary truth appears to constitute nearly the sole 
object of St. Paul's teaching. Righteousness by faith, 
the putting off the old, and putting on the new man, by 
assimilating ourselves, so far as human nature will allow, 
to our Redeemer's character; the cancelling of the inef- 
fectual law of works, and the establishment in its place 
of the covenant of mercy, are the points which he dis- 
cusses again and again, and recommends to our adoption 
by every possible variety of argument. Now it is ob- 
vious that nothing can be more opposed to the genius 
of a religion such as that now described, as the setting 
up again that very system of slavery, and of timid sub- 
jection to formal ordinances, from which it was its great 
object to deliver us. Accordingly we find that if there 
is one species of error more than another (acts of positive 
sin alone excepted) against which St. Paul takes every 
opportunity of entering his solemn protest, it is this one, 
so attractive to the natural timidity and superstition of 
the human heart. The whole tenour of his Epistle to 
the Galatians is the enforcement of this one great doc- 
trine, The Galatians, like many other members of the 



118 NOT TRADITION, 

Christian Church in all ages, were actually incredulous 
that the mercies of God could be such as they had heard 
them described. They could not comprehend how He 
should be willing to dispense with those onerous rites 
which constituted the substance of every other existing 
mode of worship, Jewish or Pagan; and they thought 
to make their assurance of salvation still more sure by 
asserting the necessity of circumcision, and of other can- 
celled rites of the Levitical law. Observe now how the 
Apostle deals with these views of what might at first 
sight appear innocent and supererogatory piety. He 
does not reason with them as merely having adopted a 
harmless and well-meaning error. He does not, as in 
charity he might be expected to do, praise the rectitude 
of their intention, and content himself by merely show- 
ing that the Gospel covenant does not really require 
these servile and formal modes of worship : but he tells 
them at once that they are setting up for themselves a 
scheme of justification opposed to and incompatible with 
that of the Gospel. That if they look for salvation 
through the presumed righteousness of ritual observances, 
they are in fact disclaiming that which is offered through 
the covenant by faith. " I marvel that ye are so soon 
removed from him that called you into the grace of 

Christ unto another Gospel O foolish Galatians, 

who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the 
truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evi- 
dently set forth, crucified among you? Are ye so 

foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made 
perfect by thefesh? Have ye suffered so many things 

in vain? After that ye have known God, or rather 

are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and 
beggarly elements whereunto ye desire again to be in 
bondage? Ye observe days and months, and times and 
years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upo A . 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 119 

you labour in vain Stand fast therefore in the 

liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not 
entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I 
Paul say unto you, that if ye be circumcised, Christ 

shall profit you nothing Christ is become of no 

effect unto you, whoever of you are justified by the law; 
ye are fallen from grace." These are strong expres- 
sions. Such again are those in the Epistle to the Colos- 
sians. "Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat or 
in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new moon, 
or of the sabbath-days, which are a shadow of things to 
come; but the body is of Christ. Let no man beguile 

you of your reward in a voluntary humility 

Wherefore, if ye be dead with Christ from the rudi- 
ments of the world, why, as though living in the world, 
are ye subject to ordinances, {touch not; taste not; handle 
not: which all are to perish with the using;) after the 
commandments and doctrines of men?" According to 
the same purport, he prophetically forewarns the Thes- 
salonians, in his 2d Epistle (ii. 6-11), and also Timothy, 
in his 1st Epistle (iii. and iv.), of the corruptions which 
the superstitions of future ages, and the spirit of Popery, 
shall one day introduce into the Church.* 

Nothing then, according to St. Paul's view of the 
subject, can be more alien to the genius of Christianity, 
than that tendency to deviate from the simple spirit of 
the Gospel, so natural to timid minds, by the introduc- 
tion of new and uncalled-for modes of serving God, 
beyond those which the obvious decencies of public wor- 
ship and the deference due to the established and legiti- 
mate authorities of the Church require, Mere ceremo- 
nies, it is true, as such, are among the things indifferent, 



* See also the two last chapters of Sir Isaac Newton's remarks on the prophecy 
of Daniel, with reference to the growth of superstition in the Christian Church. 



120 NOT TRADITION, 

neither good nor bad. So thought Paul, and so taught 
Paul, when he declared that " neither circumcision 
availeth any thing nor un circumcision;" when in con- 
formity with a vow he shaved his head, and when, to 
avoid giving unnecessary offence to the Jews, he circum- 
cised Timothy. But when these things come to be 
elaborately and ostentatiously set up as conditions of 
salvation ; when the attention is forcibly called away 
from the inward service of the heart to the mere " modus 
operandi," the outward service of the body, then assu- 
redly the spiritual worshipper of Christ should begin to 
be upon his guard, that he attach not to these supple- 
mentary accidents of religion that scrupulous deference 
which is due only to the fundamental principles of faith. 
Few errors are so truly seductive as this, because few 
are at once so natural and at the same time so well 
intentioned. But long experience, the experience of 
eighteen centuries, has shown that few errors eat more 
deeply into the very essence of religion, and that rarely, 
if ever, servility and vitality of devotion can be found 
together. During a moment of artificial excitement 
they may serve to enhance, but, like all other stimu- 
lants, they will ultimately deaden the feelings which 
they are intended to encourage. The history of super- 
stition, from its first buddings in the innocent conceits 
of a sensitive mind, through all the gradual accumula- 
tions of successive generations, until it finally settled in 
the establishment of Popery, affords a humiliating and 
instructive lesson to the Christian student. It informs 
him how much serious harm he may ultimately be 
doing to the cause of true religion when, in yielding to 
an excited imagination, he finds himself preferring 
strong sensations to sound reason, and setting up human 
inventions in rivalry with the injunctions of Scripture. 
Compare Paul the tent-maker, contentedly working at 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 121 

his humble occupation, in order that he might be enabled 
to preach gratuitously the Gospel of Christ, with Simeon 
upon his pillar, or Anthony in the deserts of the Thebaid. 
What a transition does the view present from the sober 
fervour of enlightened Christianity to the ravings of a 
benighted fanaticism ! And yet towards the production 
of this latter stage every member of the early church 
had contributed his share, who in the course of the three 
first centuries had lent his aid in encumbering anew his 
religion with that tissue of slavish observances from 
which Christ had made him free. " Let no man beguile 
you of your reward, in a voluntary humility." These 
words of St. Paul, already quoted, afford a sound and 
wholesome lesson. Nothing is so entirely becoming to 
our nature as that submission of the heart and soul to 
the divine will which the Gospel prescribes. But how 
different is this from the abject degradation of both 
mind and body, which superstition, whether Pagan or 
self-styled Christian, would inculcate ! We hear much 
now-a-days of the submission of our understanding to 
the dictation of our spiritual instructors, and to the 
superior wisdom of antiquity, as though the surrender 
of our own judgment, and the blind adoption of primi- 
tive usages, were only another name for Christian faith. 
Let it be at least recollected, that the humility prescribed 
by the Gospel extends to every portion of the human 
race alike; to the teacher no less than to the pupil. 
But the humility which is attempted to be taught by 
the dictation of uninspired men, inculcating their own 
theories as portions of Holy Writ, if it encourages the 
prostration of the understanding on the one part, is no 
less favourable to spiritual tyranny and dogmatism on 
the other. It lowers the scholar by attempting to deify 
the teacher. The faith which it would enjoin as a 
Christian duty is not a humble trust in God's promises, 

Q 



122 NOT TRADITION, 

but in man's fallible dictation. This tendency, which 
has been more or less visible in all ages where tradition 
has been in any degree set up as a co-rival with Scrip- 
ture, has ever been strongest at those times when mo- 
mentary excitement has given an artificial value to 
human theories at the expense of the sober wisdom of 
revelation. In Sulpicius Severus's curious account of 
the monks of the Thebaid, we read some singular illus- 
trations of the extent to which under the notion of 
submission to legitimate spiritual authority, the fanatics 
of that period carried their voluntary humiliation. Thus 
we are told of one novice who, being ordered by his 
ghostly superior, as a proof of his obedience, to walk 
boldly into a blazing oven, whilst heating for the pur- 
pose of baking bread, did so, and was rewarded, as we 
are of course told, by coming out uninjured. Another 
had the unpromising task imposed upon him of water- 
ing unceasingly for the space of more than two years, a 
dry branch of storax capriciously stuck into the burning 
sand, at a distance of two miles from the Nile, by the 
president of his monastery. It is consolatory to find 
that in the course of the third year his faith had its re- 
compence, by the plant acquiring sufficient strength to 
be able to dispense with his further attendance. 

Such are the strange caprices to which human super- 
stition, when left to draw its own conclusions on the 
subject of the divine worship, has a tendency to betake 
itself. When, indeed, they are considered in this 
extreme point of view, there is no tolerably cultivated 
human mind which does not at once perceive their 
absurdity, and their total want of congeniality with the 
spirit of the Gospel. But, as has already been observed, 
it is through many progressive stages and gradually 
deepening shades that we arrive at this their utmost 
point. Every human invention which we set up in 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 123 

rivalry to the written word, — every form of worship, 
however originally innocent, or even expedient, as con- 
tributing to the decorum of our public ceremonies, 
partakes, in some degree, of the same character, the 
moment that it ceases to be considered as a form, and 
is elevated, as is too often the case, into an article of 
faith. We cannot safely extend the spirit of Scripture, 
any more than we can, by mere human authority, add 
to its letter. The boundary is one which, if we choose 
to draw the line at the right place, we cannot possibly 
mistake. But if we once pass beyond it, and amid the 
thickening crowd of fanciful theories begin to ask our- 
selves which we shall adopt as necessary, which discard 
as superstitious, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to 
say where we are to stop. The propriety of turning to 
the East in prayer ; the comparative merits of the Sur- 
plice and of the Cope, of the praying-stool or of the 
reading-desk, will afford as eager subjects of controversy 
to theologians in the 19th century, as the quartodeciman 
question on the rival claims of the circular or semicircu- 
lar tonsure did to Bede and his brother controversialists 
in the 8th. And thus in the discussion of trifles, the 
momentous fundamentals of our faith become partially 
overlooked. One suggestion leads to another. Every 
imaginary discovery, every admission once made, is 
succeeded as a matter of course by some unanswerable 
consequence, until the whole of our religion becomes a 
fantastic dream, and revelation disappears under an 
accumulation of extraneous notions. 

It is however, let me again repeat, with no feeling of 
hostility to the authorized ceremonials, or to the decent 
splendour of religious worship, that these remarks are 
written. Very far from it. Religion can, no more than 
social order and the authority of secular government, 
be maintained under the existing constitution of our 



124 NOT TRADITION, 

nature, without such external forms and established 
associations as call forth the reverence of the mind, and 
oblige it to submit itself unresistingly to the dictations 
of good order, sound sense, and enlightened discipline. 
God, we are told, is the author of order, not of confusion. 
Did we possess no other sanction for the establishment 
of Church government with its attendant ceremonials, 
this one would be sufficient, as binding upon the con- 
science of every well-intentioned Christian. The au- 
thority of the spiritual is, at all events, as sacred as that 
of the secular magistrate, when exercised in discretion, 
and with reference to the will of Him from whom all 
power is derived. The language of the 20th Article of 
our Church appears to reach that precise point, short of 
which none but the self-willed and arrogant would wish 
to stop, and beyond which none but the advocate of 
spiritual despotism would desire to advance. Forms 
and ceremonials there must be. But they can, by any 
possibility, exist only in concurrence with a feeling of 
deference to those who bear legitimate authority, and a 
predisposition to conform to those usages which a wise 
antiquity, or the common consent of our enlightened 
Christian brethren, have consecrated. The moment, 
however, that this reasonable boundary is passed, that 
things indifferent are enjoined as integral points of doc- 
trine, and that man steps in to exercise an authority for 
which he has received no commission, then, indeed, it 
becomes every follower of Christ to stand forth in de- 
fence of that liberty which his Redeemer has established. 
Nor should it be forgotten, that great as the sin of 
schism undoubtedly is, its guilt attaches not so much 
to those who, solely from a wish to preserve their mode 
of divine worship in its primitive purity, withdraw from 
a community whose usages they disapprove, as to those 
who encumber their articles of fellowship with condi- 



BUT SCRIPTURE. 125 

tions which Scripture gives them no warrant to demand. 
Where, indeed, we are to draw that exact line, — where 
the right of legitimate dictation ceases, and superstitious 
usurpation begins, will always be difficult to determine, 
and will be variously judged of according to the different 
modes of human feeling. But he who has drunk in 
deeply the full spirit of revelation, will always be the 
best judge upon these contested points. A sincerely 
humble Christian will never be forward to question or 
criticise the religious usages to which he has been 
accustomed from his childhood. And where such a 
person feels strongly that the ordinances to which he 
is called upon to conform are either superstitious in 
themselves, or calculated to introduce superstition in 
their remote consequences, the remonstrance of that per- 
son deserves, at all events, to be listened to. The golden 
rule laid down by St. Paul is, that the conscience 
of the weak, and not of the strong-minded brethren, 
is in these cases the principle which should regulate 
our conduct; and even those superfluous scruples de- 
mand our respect, which proceed from a wish, even in 
matters of indifference, not to go beyond what divine 
revelation has sanctioned. Had this rule been enforced 
in the by-gone ages, it is needless to observe from how 
much spiritual tyranny — how much degradation of the 
whole human character — how much obscuration of the 
spirit of Christianity, mankind would have been spared. 
That future generations may not again fall into the 
darkness which bewildered their forefathers, can be 
effected only by their being forewarned of the seductive 
fallacies which misled them; and by their adhering 
firmly and unceasingly to that infallible guide, which 
God, in his infinite mercy, has vouchsafed to his help- 
less and erring creatures, the inspired scriptures, 

THE END. 



Periodical— 8 printed sheets. 



NOT TRADITION, 



BUT 



SCRIPTURE. 



PHIL A DELPHI A : 

HOOKER & AGNEW. 
1841. 



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